


The Gifts of the Maker

by mandrakefunnyjuice



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Apostates, Circle of Magi, Drama, Family, Ferelden, Freedom, Gen, Humor, Magic, Oppression, Religion, Templars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandrakefunnyjuice/pseuds/mandrakefunnyjuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon an alternate timeline, Bethany Hawke the Apostate never made it to Kirkwall with the rest of her family; instead, she was caught in Lothering at a young age by the templars and was sent to the Tower in Ferelden, becoming Bethany Amell the Circle Mage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Winning Friends and Influencing People

            Bethany Hawke had always made a habit of picking plants wherever she went.  She wasn’t sure where she picked up this habit, but she blamed it on her father Malcolm.  He knew how to make any potion humanly possible.  And elvenly possible and dwarvenly possible too, she was sure.  He had made a prudent point of taking plant samples wherever they went and wherever they traveled.  He taught her what plants were dangerous to eat and what ones weren’t, and what ones were just for looking at.  She knew all the possible environments and places where elfroot could grow in any given area and had a knack for always knowing where to find it; a valuable skill to have with the kind of life that she and her family lived.

           She wasn’t a master herbalist like her father, though.  Malcolm Hawke had tried to teach her how to make simple poultices and potions several times with varying amounts of success, but it never quite stuck.  More often than not her attempts exploded in her face, like that one time – well, her older brother would be able to tell you the story better.  She was unconscious for most of it.  Bethany didn’t really like collecting herbs like her father, though, she just liked collecting flowers; everywhere she went, her father went around finding ingredients and she went flower-picking.  This wasn’t her father’s fault, but her mother’s.  Leandra Hawke _loved_ flowers, especially daffodils and lilies.  Her absolute favorite was jasmine, but that never seemed to grow in the places they went these days.  Mother always liked the color yellow; said it was pleasant reminder for her, like a ray of sunshine breaking through the ponderous overcast skies.  As for Bethany’s favorites, she wasn’t a fan of the big showy flowers and was rather partial to Dame’s Rockets, catchflies, and snapdragons.  Although she did secretly adore orchids.  And roses were rather nice, too.

            Even if the plants Bethany picked never really had any practical or medical purpose, it was just pure habit by this point.  She never even kept the half of them.  Sometimes she would press them into books she was reading and use them as bookmarks.  Most of the time she would just forget that they were in her books and discover them, dried out and wretched several years later and wonder what in the world she’d been thinking back then.  She did it anyway, though, and though she could never pinpoint why she continued to do it, the hobby passed the time while her family was on the road.

            You see, Bethany Hawke was an apostate.  So was her father.  Her mother, elder brother, and twin brother were not and she wasn’t certain that they hadn’t gotten the better part of the bargain.  Her father always insisted that Bethany’s talent for magic was a wonderful gift, but so far she hadn’t seen her magic do anything but inspire fear and bring her family copious amounts of misery.  Because of her and her father’s magic, they’d never been able to live by their means.  Or out in the open.  Or in the general vicinity of anything remotely resembling intelligent life, really.  Ferelden may have been a free country but it treated apostates just like everyone else (except for Tevinter, maybe, but Bethany certainly didn’t want to go to a place where something like _slavery_ was not only legal but _encouraged!_ ).  Her father said that magic was a gift of the Maker, though, and the only reason that they’d have to hide is because of man.  It was mankind’s fault, that they treated and squandered one of the greatest natural forces in the world – magic – the way they did, and didn’t give it the proper respect; they confined it to Circles where it would stagnate instead of letting it flourish in the world like it was meant to.

           Mages were hardly considered human; Bethany knew how it felt to be looked down upon as something less than human, to be fixed with a look that should be reserved for vermin and insects.  She’d seen the looks on people’s faces when they discovered what she was.  It wasn’t something she’d wish on anyone.  It almost made her wish she hadn’t been born this way, but she didn’t; she believed her father when he taught her that it wasn’t her fault, it was mankind’s fault.  Because no one, Malcolm always said, was born to suffer and die, and no one was meant to be punished simply because of what they were.  Not every mage was a blood mage, but mankind didn’t like making that distinction, he said; mages weren’t meant to be this way, he said.  We’re supposed to be free.  She’d often asked him when she was younger why they weren’t.  He never really had an answer, he just got this very sad and lost look on his face and told her that it was baby steps.  One step at a time.  Or, a foot in the door.  It would take time, to make it all better, but one day, it **would** be better – that was a promise.

            Bethany wished she believed that, but it’s very hard to.  She’d been taught by her father that the Maker wasn’t what the Chantry had said (because no benevolent deity would abandon their children so) but the Chantry had said that because of mankind’s folly when they persecuted his Bride, he’d deemed everyone unworthy.  And from the looks of things, she wasn’t sure that they were wrong.  Bethany had seen some things that didn’t look like they’d been designed by a benevolent deity like the one her father described, including blood magic and abominations.  She’d never seen them in person, of course, but knew they were possible.  She didn’t like to dwell on it too much.  Dwelling just brought room for doubt.  Still, food for thought on the long roads:  Bethany reasoned that maybe no one was right about the Maker since no one could seem to agree on what he was, and she was more or less willing to accept this.  It didn’t affect her much one way or the other.

            Ho-hum.

            She and her family (and their dog) were walking along the Imperial Highway.  Two days ago they’d been attacked by bandits who didn’t know what they were messing with:  a powerful apostate, his irritated and travel-worn wife and their three children aged fifteen to eighteen – one of whom could cast a very mean fireball (she liked fire spells) and the other two who’d been playing with swords since they were old enough to handle one.  Not to mention one very defensive mabari warhound named Chomper.  Bethany almost felt bad for the bandits.  Almost.  Currently, her mother and father were discussing things in hushed tones.  She didn’t have to eavesdrop to know that they were talking about her.  Whenever they got hushed, they were always talking about _magic_ and _evil templars_ and _the Circle_ and _apostates_ and such.  She didn’t like listening in on those conversations anyway.  They never ended well. 

           She was walking next to her twin brother Carver, and they shared one of those **looks** , the ones that only twins share.  They could sometimes read each other’s minds.  It wasn’t magic, it was just instinct.  Parents, Carver was scoffing silently as he rolled his eyes at her.  What a joke.  Bethany rolls her eyes and silently admonishes him.  You shouldn’t talk about them that way.  You shouldn’t be so quick to defend them, he tells her with his eyes.  Bethany rolls her eyes again.  I’m not, she says, but I just… Bethany frowns.  I don’t like it when they argue, Carver.  Neither do I, he silently agrees. 

           Their imaginary conversation comes to an abrupt end when their older brother Sean, who is walking silently in front of them mutters back to them, “I can hear you two thinking all the way from up here, you know.”

            “Oh?”  Bethany smiles.  “Are you a mind-reader, brother?”  
            “Hardly.  I just _know_ the only way an older brother knows, you know?”

            “Um, no?”

            Sean grins.  “Exactly.”

            Carver scratches his head.  “You never make sense, Sean.”

            Her older brother sighs and likewise scratches his head.  “Yeah.  I know.  None of you lot appreciate my genius.”

            They walk in silence for some great distance and Mother and Father eventually stop their whispering-argument.  Bethany is glad.  She hates it when they argue.  She thinks Carver can sense her relief.  Her mood definitely perks up when she spots a bit of Columbine along the road and snatches them.  Sean rolls his eyes at her habit like he always does, and her parents merely smile.  She reaches down and pets Sean’s mabari, who pants in delight.

* * *

           

           Before long they were in a new place.  It was different from the old place.  They never stayed in one place very long.

           “This place is different,” father informs.  “Lothering’s quiet.  Chantry isn’t as observant.  Not as many templars.  We should be able to stay here for a long time.”

            “I hope so,” Sean says darkly.

            Carver shrugs.  “Well, it can’t be any worse than Gwaren, can it?”

            Bethany remembers Gwaren.  She had liked it there, but her brothers hadn’t.  The Chantry there was a place of peace as well as dread for Bethany; sometimes, when she had been left to her own devices, she would go down to the Chantry in Gwaren and talk to the lay sisters.  They never suspected anything, but her father had been furious.  She never understood why he was so angry, since he was the one who taught her to hide her abilities as a mage and he was a very good teacher.  The best place to hide is in plain sight, he sometimes said, but don’t ever go out of your way to be obvious.  She eventually reasoned that it was just something that parents do, they worry unnecessarily, even when you have things under control and you know what you’re doing.  Malcolm had told his daughter that even if she _thought_ she knew what she was doing, she _wasn’t_ , because she was a _teenager_ , and that meant she couldn’t do anything without supervision.  That had just made her mad.  Bethany frowned and pouted and eventually her father relented.  Be careful, was all he said.  It was all the advice she needed.  I’m always careful, she told him.  You shouldn’t worry so much.  We’re going to be fine.

            Bethany wasn’t sure why father thought Lothering was different.  He had always made a point of mentioning that they couldn’t ever stay in one place very long, but even with the lax Chantry influence in Lothering, it couldn’t be _that_ different… could it?  It certainly didn’t look that different.

            Either way, as soon as she they arrived, Bethany went about the Ritual almost immediately.  She had a very good memory, good for memorizing people and names and faces, even if it came at the cost of being directionally challenged.  (Carver always teased her about the one time they had let Bethany carry the map and they’d ended up criminally lost in the Bannorn.  They were trying to get to Highever and somehow ended up in Rainesfere, which was about the exact opposite of where they wanted to be.  Mother just couldn’t stop laughing.  Bethany’d been so humiliated and had blamed it on the map, of course.  _I mean, who wrote it?  What sadistic cartographer made it so hard to read?  It should’ve been simpler!_ )  Regardless, as soon as they arrived in Lothering, Bethany, Carver, Sean, and Chomper went to the Chantry. 

            It seemed like the opposite of what they were meant to do; Bethany always felt a bit uncomfortable within any distance of any Chantry, regardless of how nice the people were that worked there or whatever.  It comes with being an apostate; the Chantry teaches that apostates, i.e. mages that live outside of the Circle of Magi, are to be punished for their crime of not living in the Circle and should be avoided at all costs because they are evil, evil, evil.  Er, well, more or less.  It wasn’t really that bad, Bethany was sure, but that was just the impression she sometimes got.  More importantly, though, the Chantry was home to the _templars._

           The templars were everything that Bethany feared.  She couldn’t help it.  Even their strange helmets were unsettling.  Their combination of robes and armor weren’t just enough; they had to possess the ability to strip any mage in sight of all mana in the blink of an eye.  And she’d also heard very frightening stories (she didn’t really believe they were true but she had nightmares nonetheless) about the horrifying ways they treated apostates when they found them and the terrible things they did to blood mages.  She was no blood mage, but she was absolutely terrified of the templars.  Their abilities to strip mana just weren’t enough, she thought darkly.  Bethany didn’t know how they did it, and father had tried to explain it once but had failed; all she knew was that the templars could almost literally smell magic from a mile away and that was bad.  But Bethany knew how to be careful, and Carver knew how to brawl, and Sean knew how to lie them all out of just about anything they couldn’t avoid or punch their way out of.  She felt as safe as she could be when setting foot into the Lothering Chantry for the first time.

            It was smaller than she’d thought.  It smelled of incense.  And it was full of templars.

            But, not as many as she’d thought there would be.  Most of them had helmets on, but the ones that didn’t she quickly scanned and committed faces to memory.  In the event of running into them when they weren’t in their armor, she had to be prepared.  It was the tradition in the family, wherever they went, that someone would take Bethany down to the Chantry so she could get a good look at the templars.

            Bethany took a deep breath and looked up to her older brother.  He looked down at her and nodded, nudging her.  You can do this, he said silently.  She looked to Carver.  He just smirked and said silently, good luck.  Jerk, she thought back at him and reached for his hand.  He gripped it tightly and they tried their best to look as inconspicuous as a young apostate and her brothers and their dog could be.

            The three of them went about the Chantry for a good hour before Bethany had had enough.  She pretended to pray, they milled about, speaking to the sisters or explaining that they were new in town and didn’t know a soul (no one was surprised to see strangers as Lothering was a hub of travelers, despite its small size) and one of her brothers made sure to stay at her side at all times, just in case.  Be prepared for every eventuality, Malcolm Hawke had taught them.  He taught them well.

            Bethany had got the chance to speak to the grand cleric.  She couldn’t remember the grand cleric’s name.  She and Carver afterward shared a brief joke about how Bethany should’ve been struck by lightning just by entering the grand cleric’s office alone.  Bethany also met a few of the lay sisters.  One of them, a faintly Orlesian woman, was very friendly and told her all about Lothering.  She apparently was new to Lothering as well.  For some reason or another, she made Sean very nervous _._   Carver liked her well enough.  Bethany had asked subtly just how many templars they had here in Lothering.  The red-haired Orlesian woman laughed and said ‘plenty.’

           Overall Bethany gathered the names of only four templars that she had seen in the Chantry without their helmets and knew the faces of five others.  One of them was the Knight-Commander of that branch of the Chantry, even – Ser Bryant, he was.  And there was one named Ser Maron, and one named Ser Reginald, and another named Ser Kiernan. 

            All in all, it had been a productive day.  Their father had been pleased.  Bethany promised that she’d go back tomorrow and learn more.  You have to know _exactly_ who and what to avoid in order to get any good at avoiding, her mother said.  Bethany agreed wholeheartedly.  Know your target better than they know you.

            Their parents had acquired lodging for the next few nights at the tavern slash Inn, called Dane’s Refuge.  It never ceased to amaze Bethany how little people noticed her family when they were passing through.  To her, it had always seemed as if the words “I AM AN APOSTATE” may as well be tattooed on her forehead.  To her, it was obvious.  It was always fascinating at how little people paid attention or even cared about the Hawkes, especially Bethany and her father, and when she thought about it more it was kind of frightening that everyone didn’t notice she and her father were mages.  Not that she wanted them to notice by any means, oh no, no, no, but still.

            “What do you think the people here would do if they found out I’m an apostate?”  She whispered to Carver as they began trudging to their rooms at the Dane’s Refuge.  Chomper growled at her question, although he might have just been growling at a nearby cat he saw.  Bethany could never be sure with the dog. 

            Carver just snorted.  “What do you think?”

            Bethany pouted.  “You’re so surly, you know that?”

            “No, I’m tired.”

            Sean snickered from behind them.  He reached down and patted Chomper out of habit and the dog looked up at his master in undisguised delight.  “They’d probably crucify you and father if they knew.”             

           Bethany nodded and smiled.  “Probably.  Guess I shouldn’t go around chucking fireballs?”

            “That would be a no.”

            She sighed.  “It’s strange, to think people would turn on us… just for what we are.”

            “And unfair,” Carver added darkly.

            “Yes,” she agreed, “and unfair.  I know they’re only afraid, but if only they knew that…”

            “That what?”

            Sean picked up her train of thought:  “that’s there’s nothing to be afraid of?  Bethany wouldn’t hurt a fly.  Mosquitoes, yes, but flies, no.”

            Bethany grimaced.  “Mosquitoes are awful.”

            “She’ll certainly incinerate those little bastards, but not flies or pretty flowers or bunnies or kittens.  Our little sister is a good apostate.”  Sean grinned and made to pat Bethany on the head but she swatted his hand away.

            Her face scrunched up in thought.  “I’m not sure the templars believe in good apostates.”

            “They’re scared of her because they don’t know better,” Carver snapped.  “They should, but they don’t.  They’re all closed-minded bastards.”  Sean opened his mouth to argue but apparently thought better of it and just shook his head.

            Bethany frowned, deep in thought.  “Well, no point in dwelling on it.”  She shrugged and headed towards their given room.  She was still in deep thought by the time they began unpacking. 

            “Hey, Bethany,” Sean said suddenly, startling her out of her reverie.  She looked up at him curiously.  “Just a question, nothing serious but… have you ever thought about blood magic?”

            She blinked, startled even more at the question.  Carver was staring at their older brother like he’d grown a second head.  “Er, I suppose so.  I mean, I have thought about it.”

            “Bethany!”  Carver cried out.

            “I’m not saying I ever considered _learning_ it,” she corrected quickly, “but I’ve thought about it.  Thinking about something is a far cry from giving into it.”

            Sean nodded in understanding.  “I’ve just… always wondered what drove mages to it.”

            “Father says blood magic can control people, distort their minds, make them do terrible things.  I certainly wouldn’t ever want that.  I have enough problems with my magic as it is right now, I don’t need more power.  Wouldn’t it just make me a bigger target?”

            “I don’t know, a little extra kick would be something,” Sean smirked, “but we wouldn’t want you to suddenly morph into a monster and have to be put down by the templars.”

            “Definitely not,” she emphatically agreed and went back to unpacking, the conversation apparently over and Sean’s curiosity satisfied.  Her brothers were strange, she mused contentedly.

            The idea was that Bethany’s family would stay at the Dane’s Refuge for as long as necessary until Leandra and Malcolm managed to find a more permanent residence.  The very next day when Bethany and Sean went to the Chantry to go about templar-memorizing again, Carver and her parents would go house-hunting. 

            Four new names with faces were added to Bethany’s mental list:  Ricard, Simon, Lambert, and Antoine.  The friendly Orlesian lay sister they’d encountered the day before was named Leliana, and she had been quite helpful.  There were two other sisters Bethany found out the names of – Ardalace and Yvette.  She also knew the name of the Chanter that stood outside the Chantry doors most days, next to the Chantry Board – Chanter Devons.  Bethany was reasonably certain that they weren’t very many people left in the Lothering Chantry (it was a very small town, remember) that she didn’t either recognize or know the name of.  It was a relief for her, to put a name and face to her fears.  She always felt less like there was a sign above her head that read “PLEASE TURN IN THIS APOSTATE TO THE NEAREST CIRCLE” when she knew what was going on around her.  Even Sean was picking up a bit on her confidence, which was definitely reassuring.  Her brother may only have been eighteen but he was by far the best swordsman _she’d_ ever seen (even better than Carver, although she’d never say so to Carver’s face – he’d never forgive her for it) and so it was very comforting to have Sean Hawke at her back. 

            “Well, brother,” she said, looking back up at him.  “I think we’re done here for the day.”

            “Good job,” he grinned.  “Took you long enough though.  I won’t be sorry to see the back end of this place – you know how nervous Chantries make me.” She rolled her eyes.

            The two went the long way through town and looked at some of the shops.  Lothering had few.  Window-shopping only, of course, but it was good to get a feel for the town.  It was a peaceful sort of place.  It wasn’t pretty by any means, but according to Sister Leliana it was a place of contemplation, the kind of place where you could stop and take a breath for as long as you like.  It was a place of _rest_.

            _Rest._

            That was really the only word Bethany needed to hear.  She was only fifteen but she was so very, very tired of running.  She’d been running her whole life from the Chantry and its villainous templars.  She didn’t hate them for chasing her – she understood that to their perspective, she was just as evil as she thought they were.  It wasn’t a comforting thought.  Sometimes she wished she could just be like Carver and have everything be black and white and simple.  She didn’t want to understand her enemies, she just wanted them gone, or to be gone from them.  She couldn’t out run them forever, either.

            She sighed.  “What?”  Sean asked, concernedly.

            “Oh,” she sighed again.  “Nothing.  Hope mum and dad were right about this place.  I’d like to stay here.  It’s not bad.  A little gloomy maybe, but peaceful.”

            “Tch, better than _Gwaren_.”

            “I didn’t think it was _that_ bad.”

            “It was too.”

            “No it wasn’t,” she countered impetuously, “it wasn’t bad at all.  It would’ve been almost fine, if not for that one incident, and if not you and Carver hadn’t—”

            Sean cut her off quickly, “yeahletsnotgetintothat.  Let’s just, er, get back to the Inn.  And you’re right.  Gwaren was just _fantastic._  Full of… nice, great people, and fortunately stupid templars.”

            Bethany laughed at this.  “True, what with the flaming barrels.”

            Sean laughed too.  “Yes, how could I forget—I was there, remember?  Right in front of Ser whatshisname.  Rochefort or whatever.”

            “Don’t think I’ve _ever_ been so scared in my life,” she admitted.

            “Me neither,” Sean said quite seriously.  “I nearly had a heart attack and father was practically apoplectic – not to mention Carver’s reaction.”

           “Don’t remind me,” she murmured darkly.

           “But seriously enough,” Sean continued, “Mum’s a genius.  Can’t believe she managed to talk us out of that – although I suppose it wasn’t hard after the explosion. Explosions can be pretty distracting.”

            “Ugh, Dad wouldn’t let me out of the house for weeks.  I was _miserable_.  And with _Carver_.  He wouldn’t stop teasing me about it for months after, even.  You weren’t there for that, so don’t say I’m exaggerating – it was just awful.  Worse than when he nailed my pigtails to the bed!”

            “I bet.  Wait, you remember the pigtails?”  Sean blinked.  “That was … when you were six, wasn’t it?”

            “I remember everything,” she said breezily.  As they were heading back to the Inn a thought struck Bethany.  “Hey, why did you ask me about blood magic yesterday anyway?”

            Sean shrugged and kicked at the stone of the bridge beneath them as they crossed over the creek that led back to the tavern slash Inn.  “I said I was just curious.  Father’s gone off about it often enough, about how anyone who does it has no excuse, that it’s the ‘point of no return’ and whatnot, because it’s evil or wrong, blah, blah, ranting, blah.  The thing is, though, I’ve never seen it so I wouldn’t be able to say for myself whether or not it’s evil.” 

            “You… don’t think blood magic is evil?”  Bethany said quietly, darting suspicious glances around to make sure no one was listening.

            Sean frowned at this.  “No, I suppose not.  It’s not like blood magic _itself_ controls you, is it?  It’s all in the mage.  I think some people are evil, blood mages or no.  Then again... well, I just think you need to see something in action or practice yourself in order to really judge it.  Father probably has probably seen plenty to know what he’s talking about, but I certainly haven’t.  I was just curious as to your opinion.  You’ve never talked about it, really.”

            Bethany looked down at the ground.  “For me, it’s not even a matter of whether or not it’s evil.  I mean, it probably, definitely is, but that’s not what matters.  People hate it anyway.  It’ll always be a stigma.”

            Sean caught up on her line of thought again – he was good at that, he and Carver both.  “Everybody _does_ hate maleficarum, this is true.  Well, not everyone, I’m sure, but the vast majority of people seem to.  I suppose ‘good’ and ‘evil’ wouldn’t matter much, even if you were using blood magic for the right reasons – people will react the same way, by running away in terror and, if they’re templars, with stabbity death.”

            “And cackling while they do the stabbing,” Bethany had to add.

            “Yes, cackling, don’t forget the cackling.”

            Bethany sighed again.  “I’m not sure there _are_ right reasons for using blood magic, brother.”

            “Oh,” he sighed, staring up at the blue sky, “I don’t know.  I could see it.  Protecting a loved one, that would be a good reason.”

            Bethany thought about this.  “I suppose if we were attacked by bandits or something and you all somehow managed to become incapacitated… and they attacked Mother… I would do it.  I would… use blood magic.  But not because I’d want to.”

            “Oh, definitely not.  But if you had no choice?  If they forced your hand?”

            “Well, maybe.  I don’t know.  I don’t know anything about it, I mean, um, blood magic, except that it comes from demons.  Only place you can learn it, I think.  I-I-I’d have to, um, make a _deal_ with . . . And anyway, we should probably stop talking about this,” she dropped to a whisper, “’cause people will overhear us in the Inn.  Which will lead to _Ser Lambert_ knocking at the door.”

            Sean rolled his eyes and opened the door to the Dane’s Refuge for the both of them.  “Pfft.  Lambert… what a dumb name.  Do you think his parents hated him?”

            “I don’t think they would’ve named him Lambert and given him to the Chantry if they didn’t hate him,” Bethany told him, dripping with sarcasm, but smiling nonetheless.  Sean smirked briefly and the two left to see if Carver or their parents had gotten back yet.

* * *

 

 

           Malcolm and Leandra managed to find a house.  It took some searching but it was there.  Cost them nearly all the money they’d managed to save, but Bethany was beyond ecstatic.  A _house!_   A real one!  They’d get to live _normally_.  Well, if Father was right and if they could stay under the radar.  They’d have to live far beneath their means but Bethany didn’t care much.  She could go and do normal things, like maybe wear dresses and cook and clean and find daffodils to pick for Mother.

            Mother was happy.  Bethany was surprised at how happy her mother was, all things considering.  Her mother had been a noble by the name of Amell before she’d run away from Kirkwall with her father.  Bethany had always wondered what it would have been like, in Kirkwall, or in a noble’s household.  Mother sometimes told her stories about her youth, but she always cut them short and ended up with a very sad look on her face.  As fascinated as Bethany was by her mother’s side of the family, she didn’t want to bring up bad blood or memories (as seemed to be the case with her mother) and let it rest.  She focused on being content with their new home.  It didn’t stop her from daydreaming, though, about what would have happened to the little girl she could’ve been in Kirkwall, in silk dresses in bright colors and satin gowns, hundreds of ribbons and… decent meals every day… then again, she still would be a mage, she reasoned bitterly, so she would’ve just ended up in the Circle.  She knew enough about the Circle from her father to know that it wasn’t a place that she wanted to be.

            And yet…

            Sometimes, but never aloud, and only to herself during quiet nights… she’d wonder.

            Wonder if it would be so terrible to be surrounded by other mages, her peers, to sit around and hone her gift all day.  Sometimes she’d think it wouldn’t be bad at all, maybe it would be okay to do as Andraste commanded, and that maybe father was exaggerating… but then she remembered that all of the Circle’s activities would be done under the watchful gaze of the templars, who sat around waiting to strike at the exact moment a mage looked even remotely rebellious.  She wouldn’t be able to live like that.  But then again, if she’d always been living in a Tower full of mages and their guardian monkey-helmeted templars, she probably wouldn’t even know different.  It wouldn’t be so terrible.

            But she wasn’t a Circle mage, she was an apostate, and she wasn’t sorry about her state for one second.  Those little renegade thoughts about how her mother had given up so much for her father, and her brothers had given up so much for Bethany, and how the family as a whole had suffered because of her and her father’s gifts… they weren’t very common thoughts.  Still, they were there, and they tended to crop up the more time they spent in Lothering.

            Well.  At least Chomper was happy.  He liked to run around the outskirts of Lothering in the farm fields and bring back random rodents he’d killed for the family.  Sean thought it was adorable, but Bethany thought it was kind of gross.  Still, at least the mabari was happy enough, and there were plenty of bones to chew on and bury in the ground.

            Carver got antsy after a month.  It was normal for him to get antsy.  Bethany was usually able to balance him out but he kept getting nervous about the templars and all but hissed at the merest mention of magic around the dinner table.  Eventually, he and Sean had it out and by the end of it, Carver was irritated but subdued and Sean was just plain irritated.  Brothers, Bethany thought sulkily.  Were they like this all over Thedas?

            The Hawkes had never stayed in one place for too long.  Six months was the longest Bethany ever remembered being in one place.  One didn’t make friends or ties because that just made the leaving harder.  But Malcolm insisted that they were going to stay in Lothering and make it a home.  It was worth it to at least try.

            Bethany wasn’t sure _how_ to try.  The lack of permanency in their lives made all three of the siblings unsure of how to continue.  The town had acclimatized to them a bit, even.  It was the strangest thing to see someone recognize them outdoors.  Especially in the Chantry.  Or at the Inn.  People would wave and smile in familiarity, not contempt or fear.  Bethany was just unsure of how to even go about making acquaintances, so she did the only thing she could do – she asked her mother for advice, and then went to the Chantry for more advice.  The Chantry may have been the bane of her existence as an apostate, but they weren’t _all_ bad.  Just the templar part of them was bad.  She found that she rather liked Sisters Leliana and Ardalace and discovered that really, none of the sisters in the Chantry had _always_ been sisters and were a bit more worldly than they let on.  Leliana didn’t say much about her life but she dropped some hints that Bethany eagerly caught on to.

            Gradually, as the months went on, she started to get to know their neighbors.  One of them had a daughter her age.  It was all Bethany could do not to shout from the rooftops, “I AM A MAGE AND MAKING FRIENDS, HEAR ME ROAR,” but at least Carver got a laugh out of it when she told him.  Although the neighbor’s girl was a lot more, er, moody than Bethany was.  It was a bit strange.  She was a bit strange.  Her name was Melissa, and she had short blond hair and the darkest eyes Bethany had ever seen.  Melissa was always angry at something and reminded Bethany more than a little of Carver, which made her laugh.  Carver was always mad at something.  It’s what made Carver Carver, and what made Melissa Melissa.

            Her brothers took a bit longer than Bethany did to acclimatize, so to speak.  To her knowledge, Sean hadn’t set one foot in the Chantry since he had helped her go about her templar-memorizing those months ago.  She thought it a bit funny that her elder brother, the backbone of steel, the best fighter she knew, had this strange, unconditional fear of the Chantry.  She had more reason than he to be afraid of it and yet he avoided it like the plague, whereas she made a bit of a point to at least go there once a week, if not to check for any new templars than to chat with the sisters. 

            At least Leandra Hawke approved of it.  Her father didn’t have to like it, Bethany making rounds to the Chantry, but he trusted her enough not to accidentally give away their secret.  Mother gave her all sorts of pointers on how to go about being friendly and meet new people.  Strange, how those things were so foreign…

            Mother was happier than Bethany had ever seen her.  Happier than Chomper, even.  She’d fit in with the people of Lothering quite nicely.  Lothering wasn’t a pretty town but it had its charms, and more importantly it was _home._   It was a small town and everyone knew each other and greeted each other in the streets.  Bethany couldn’t help but smile when mother went off to chat with some local lady during her day-to-day.

            Livelihood was the biggest problem in Lothering.  Luckily, father took care of most of it – his vast knowledge of herbalism and alchemy was finally useful for more than attempting to teach Bethany the rudiments of making a salve (it never worked out and Bethany had stopped trying a year ago).  The people of Lothering were grateful to have someone of his skills around and didn’t question much.  Bethany was amazed when it turned out how right father was, about this incurious little town. 

           The Hawkes seemed to fit in just about perfectly.  Sean even eventually got a job and found his niche as the apprentice of a local blacksmith.  It never seemed to really interest him much but he joked that it at least kept him in shape.  Bethany studied magic with her father at night in private and helped mother during the days and in public.  Carver foundered, and his sister worried, much to his annoyance.  Carver always had a difficulty fitting in.  He always blamed it on Sean and being stuck in his big brother’s fat shadow, but Carver never really went out of his way to get out of that shadow.  Bethany knew him better than anyone else, though, and knew it didn’t mean much.  She was his twin, after all.  If she didn’t know when to take him seriously and when to not than she wouldn’t be a very good twin sister, would she?  Carver was never really happy with their place in Lothering but she knew that at heart he was grateful to finally have a place to sit down and rest for a while.  To finally have a place they could really call _home_.  He was restless, but not too restless.  Neither upset nor content.

            Everything was peaceful.  Everything was fine.  Everything was quiet for the first time in Bethany’s life.  Lothering wasn’t anywhere near perfect but it was home, and that was all that mattered.  The longer they stayed, the more attached she got.  They didn’t live in the main town even, just on the outskirts, but they were still a part of the community, a part of the whole and _belonged_ – and that sense of belonging had been something Bethany had wanted and dreamt of her whole life.  It shouldn’t have been possible because of her and her father’s apostate status, but that didn’t matter.  They were finally in a place that was called home.  That was all that mattered. 

            It wasn’t fair or right that it could have been taken away so fast.  It was a page straight out of one of her many nightmares.

* * *

 

 

            Her family didn’t like leaving Bethany alone.  Someone was always there, whether it was Sean or Carver or her father or Chomper or her mother.  She was always guarded.  It had been this way even before the minor incident in Gwaren – not just because she was the apostate, but because she was the darling little girl.  She didn’t like it, really, but she didn’t have reason to complain.  At least she was never lonely and always around family, always around those she loved and those that loved her in turn.  Still, it was a bit irritating.

            She was with Chomper, walking through the outskirts of Lothering and towards the Imperial Road.  She never went too far, usually sticking to the woods outside of town and idly, pensively strolling along.  It was a bright and sunny day, the sky was a radiant azure with virtually no clouds at all.  It was the end of summer and the roses were just beginning to bloom.  She’d been by the Chantry earlier to see them.  Wild roses weren’t as pretty but she liked them all the same.

            Bethany’s fondness for ‘weed-picking,’ as Carver called it, had led her to memorize virtually every type of wildflower or plant that grew near Lothering.  She didn’t like many of the flowers around, though.  The outskirts were covered with yarrow and lavender.  The smell was wonderful but they weren’t her favorites.  She looked around for anything yellow besides golden yarrow to bring back to mother but was disappointed to find nothing nearby.  Oh well.

            “Hey, Chomper,” she murmured, scratching the mabari’s ears.  The dog perked up.  She liked Chomper.  She was pretty sure that Chomper liked her, even if she wasn’t his master and he was only with her because Sean ordered him to (the mabari had only imprinted on Sean).  “See anything fun to do?”

            The dog huffed in boredom.  “I know the feeling,” Bethany sympathized.

            It was sad, but Bethany was bored.  Mother was off chatting with one of her friends, Carver was doing… something with Barlin, she didn’t know, and her father and Sean were working.  Bethany w0uld never admit it to anyone but sometimes she felt like a third wheel.  Her family had spent all of her life protecting her secret and she didn’t know any way to make it easier except by hiding her magic as best she could.  Sometimes she was jealous of other people, leading simpler lives without the secret of magic hanging over their heads like a suspended… anvil or something.  And there was always the chance that at any second that anvil could come crashing down and her secret would be out and everything would be ruined.  Again. 

            But there was no other option.  It was this or the noose.  Or the Circle.  Or Tranquility, which was the worst possible thing that could happen.  She’d rather get beaten at the hands of the templars and live in misery than become Tranquil.  Her most frequently occurring nightmare was being made tranquil.  To be unable to feel, or dream, or…

            She shuddered and scratched Chomper some more.  He panted happily.

            “Lucky dog,” she sighed idly.  “You don’t have to worry about mean men in skirts and armor knocking at _your_ door.  You just bite people on the rump.”

            Chomper looked up at her, head cocked and gave a sad little whine.  “No, I’m fine, Chomper,” she assured the dog, who looked vaguely relieved (or constipated… she wasn’t well-versed in doggy facial expressions).  “Just bored.”

            It wasn’t long before something came along and relieved that boredom.

            There she was, passing the time, second by second, lost in thought, when everything came to an abrupt halt – a piercing scream ripped through the air, high pitched and panicked.  Bethany tensed, standing ramrod straight.  Chomper growled and started barking.

            A few seconds, and then another scream.  Chomper howled.  “That sounds like a child!”  Bethany cried and Chomper tugged at her skirt.  “Quick, find it, boy.”

            Chomper charged off with Bethany in tow.  She tripped over rows of plants and irregular ground following the warhound father and farther away from Lothering and towards the woods.  Another scream shot through the air, this one louder than the other two but shorter, and Bethany began to panic.  She took a page out of her brothers’ books and started cursing under her breath.

            It was over a small hill and right on the edge of the woods where she found it – a small boy, facing down two very hungry and rabid looking wolves.  Bethany didn’t take the time to question the scene (what was this child doing out here?!  And _wolves?!_ ) – she didn’t think at all.  It was a knee-jerk reaction.  She stretched her hand forth and out came an explosion of fire, incinerating the two animals threatening the child.  Chomper howled and darted forth into the woods, chasing something only he could see – another wild animal, no doubt. 

           Bethany, unthinking, ran down the green knoll towards the small boy and placed herself in front of him, scanning the area for any more threats, instinctually winding up a bit of mana in case she needed another spell.

            The wolves were scorched and very, very dead.  Seeing no other threats, no sudden movements out of the corner of her eye, she turned to the boy….

            And then cursed her head off.  Or rather she would’ve if she hadn’t been overcome with ice-cold terror.

            “I-I-I-” she stammered at the small child’s wide-eyed stare.  “I…”  All the excuses she could think of died on her tongue.  “No…”

            “The-the-that was…” the boy was just as confused as she was.  Bethany felt her blood run cold.  She had used magic.  _Magic._   In front of a little boy.

            Instead of reacting like she expected the little boy to, though, he gasped in delight.  “That was _awesome_!”

            “Wh-what?”

            “Was that magic?”  He jumped up and down, blue eyes shining in admiration, red hair bouncing.  She stared at the boy, scared out of her wits.

            “N-no, no it wasn’t,” she rushed.  “It wasn’t magic, it was a combustion grenade.  A combustion grenade!”

            “A what?  A comby-what?  I’ve never seen magic before!  Do it again!”

            “No,” she snapped and grabbed the child’s hand, bringing him in close, shaking him and panicking out of her wits.  “Listen, you shouldn’t be out here, your parents could be so worried!”

            But he wouldn’t drop the subject – “WOW!  REAL MAGIC!”  He cried.

            “Shhhhh!”  She urged.  “No, it wasn’t magic!  You’re seeing things!”  _Oh Maker, I’m doomed, I’ve doomed us all…_

            “I heard mages were really scary,” the boy whispered confidentially, “but you saved me!  And you’re not scary at all!  You’re really pretty.  You don’t even have horns.  Real magic!  Wow!”

            “It wasn’t magic!”  She hissed.  _Horns?  Who told him mages have horns?  Oh no, oh Maker…_ “Listen, you shouldn’t tell anyone you saw that.  Ever, ever, ever.  It _wasn’t_ magic.  Yes, I killed them, but it was… uh…” She tried to remember what she’d said earlier.  “It was a combustion… thing.  Grenade.  It wasn’t…a fireball. It wasn’t at all.”  Bethany felt a tug on her sleeve and noted Chomper at her side, whining plaintively.  His muzzle was bloody, but he was unharmed.  Chomper looked at the wide-eyed child they’d rescued and whimpered.

            _This little boy could destroy everything,_ Bethany thought darkly, not relishing the thought at all.  _He needs to understand…_  

            The little boy frowned.  “So it wasn’t magic?”

            She sighed in relief, even though she wasn’t very relieved at all.  “No.  It wasn’t.  You shouldn’t tell _anyone_ that it was magic, or… or we’ll all be in very big trouble.  Do you understand?”  Chomper whined and whimpered pathetically for emphasis.

            “Well… okay, miss mage, it wasn’t magic.”

            Bethany slapped her forehead in despair and grabbed the little redheaded boy’s clammy little hand.  “What’s your name?  Where do you live?”  She asked, hoping that he would forget all about this – hoping and praying, because things could go very badly if he didn’t.

            “Me?  Me—I’m Eric, and I’m, uh, six!”  He said, holding his hands up and counting incorrectly.  It would’ve been adorable if Bethany weren’t in a coldblooded terror at the moment. 

            “Right.  I’m Bethany, not ‘miss mage.’  You shouldn’t call _anyone_ that, understand?  That’s a terrible thing.”

            “Oh.  Um.  Okay!  I live, er, that way!”  he pointed vaguely in a direction that wasn’t remotely near Lothering.  “I just got lost.”

            “Right.  Do you live in Lothering, Eric?”

            “Yep!”

            Bethany rubbed her hand over her face, trying to quell the shakes that were threatening to come over her.  A new realization dawned on her – what if there had been a templar nearby?  _Oh Maker… they can sense magic from a mile away… I have to tell father… no… can’t worry… what have I done?_   “What’s your mother’s name?”  She asked shakily.

            “Sarha.  She’s harvesting today.  I didn’t want to.”

            _Okay, so he’s a farmer’s son.  Maybe… maybe he’ll forget… oh Maker, I hope he forgets…_ “Okay, let’s find your mother, and remember, that wasn’t magic.  It wasn’t magic at all.  Understand?”  She knew she wasn’t making a good case of it but Maker’s love the boy was six and she was more terrified than she could ever remember being. 

            “Okay,” Eric said easily enough and gripped her hand more tightly.  A brief, fleeting thought had Bethany marveling at the fact that this child had recognized magic when he saw it and hadn’t shied away from her… but she couldn’t afford to enjoy that.  She was an apostate.  Her family was harboring her and her father from the templars. 

            _Oh, Maker… please, please, please, let this child forget what he saw, I don’t want to have to leave another home behind._


	2. Romans 5:3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbelievably long. It covers most of the Circle. A lot of it is introspection. The remainder of Bethany's time in the Circle will be covered in the next chapter. I'm not sorry. :/ --MFJ

           She couldn’t face her father.  She didn’t dare tell him.  Or her mother.  She sat outside their house, head buried in her hands, wondering what to do.  Her hands were still shaking.  _What do I do?  What does anyone do?_

            Chomper growled at her in a menacing, reprimanding sort of way.  She glared up at the mabari.  “Oh, don’t you start like that.  What would you have done?”  Chomper growled, and whimpered.  “That’s what I thought.  Now shush.  I’m… I have to…” 

            On the long walk back home she thought that some bright idea would dawn in her mind and she’d be able to fix everything.  A sudden epiphany would be wonderful.  It seemed to happen to Sean all the time, so she figured it had to happen to her at least once, didn’t it?

            No such luck.  No ideas, just blind panic left over from incinerating those wolves.  And she still couldn’t get the awestruck look of that boy’s face out of her mind… _he wasn’t afraid_ , she realized.  “Chomper, why wasn’t that boy afraid of me?”  She whispered.  The dog gave a questioning grunt and cocked his head to the side, tongue lolling.  “He wasn’t scared.  Anyone else would’ve been scared.  Are all children like that? I-I don’t, never...” Chomper, apparently, didn’t know, or didn’t care to answer, and just plopped down on the ground and started panting.  She scratched his belly idly.  “Oh, what do I do…”

            No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t muster the courage to face either of her parents.  They’d either yell, or panic, or cry and then ultimately force the lot of them to leave.  She knew that’s what father would do.  He would tell everyone to pack up and head for the road as soon as possible.  They couldn’t chance getting caught, ever.

            She determined right then and there that no matter what, she wasn’t going to let her stupid magic destroy this home.  Even if… well…

            She wouldn’t think about that.  It was too close to something she’d had in a nightmare.

            Because she didn’t know what else to do, she went looking for Carver.  Maybe… maybe he would… “Oh, who am I kidding,” she muttered to herself, “Carver would just tell me to suck it up and tell Dad.  Or he’d go tell Dad himself.”  But she needed to tell someone, anyone, and Carver would understand.  He would understand the way that twins always understood each other, better than other siblings, even Sean. 

            She eventually spotted Carver as he was heading home.  He nearly waved at her but then he got a look at her face, and his visage darkened.  She ran up to him and couldn’t stop herself from hugging him in relief.  He pulled her away and glared, eyes and face hard.  A brief bout of irritation rose up in her – because really, what gave Carver the right to get so angry with her?  They were the same age!  But it was only brief.  “What happened?”

            “Sh, sh, it’s not bad,” she hushed, “I need to talk to you, though.  Now.”

            “You’re not fooling me,” he snapped.  “Whenever you get that look on your face it means something really bad has happened.  So what happened?”

            She glanced around, noting that there were some townspeople around them who might overhear.  “Somewhere else, quiet.  Please don’t panic.”

            “I _am_ panicking, Beth,” he told her bluntly, and she could see it in his eyes.  He was starting to get the same drained look on his face that she was.  He was just better at hiding it.  She grabbed his hand and headed past the bridge and towards the nearest farm.  She barely recognized it as Barlin’s.  No one was around, the field was empty, so she sat down in the grass and spoke as low as she could without whispering. 

            Carver was mad at this point.  “Bethany, tell me what happened.  Now.”

            She rubbed at her eyes and sighed, a sick feeling welling up in her stomach.  “Carver,” she began, “I think… I think I did something very bad,” she admitted, her voice breaking a bit.  “And I don’t know what to do anymore.”

            His eyes widened.  “Are you in trouble?  Did a templar—”

            “No.”  And she silently prayed, _no, not yet, anyway._   “But…” and then it all came out in a rush, the entire broken confession.  She didn’t try to stop herself from telling the whole thing or it never would have come out.  Carver went completely still, completely silent as she babbled about that little boy and the wolves and how she wasn’t sure whether or not she convinced him it _wasn’t_ magic and how she couldn’t tell Mother or Father because—

            At some point her voice must’ve broken completely because she couldn’t stop herself from crying a little.  She buried her face in her hands and tried not to sob, but couldn’t stop herself.  At least the shaking in her hands had stopped, finally.  “I don’t know what to do,” she managed to get out.  “Carver, what do we do?”

            Her twin didn’t say anything.  He was staring at the ground in silence, sitting completely still.  He opened his mouth to say something, but it didn’t come out and he clammed up.  “I don’t know,” he finally admitted.  “Bethany…”

            She tore at her hair in frustration – frustration with herself, with her tears that wouldn’t stop, with everything… “I’ve ruined everyth—we’ve only been here for a _year,_ I always—I’m such a bur—I, how could I be so…so…”

            “Bethany,” Carver cut her off shortly and reached over, folding her into a hug.  “It’ll… it’s going to be all right.  Please don’t cry,” he told her softly.

            “I-I,” she sniffled, “I’m trying not to, but I can’t stop.  I don’t…”

            “It’s going to be fine,” he told her into her dark hair.  She couldn’t help but note the uncharacteristic tenderness in her brother’s tone.  This was a side of him that she was pretty sure only she and maybe her mother got to see.  His abrasive front went deep but it wasn’t all there was.  “You’re going to be fine.  I won’t let them take you away just because you saved some stupid kid that couldn’t save himself.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

            “But I did,” she sobbed, “I used magic… in front of someone.  What if he tells… oh, Maker…”

            Carver pulled her away and rested his forehead against hers.  She tried to calm her erratic breathing but it didn’t do anything because _now_ she had the hiccups and oh, she hated crying.  “No matter what, sis,” he told her gently, “I won’t let them take you away.”

            “Okay,” she said simply.

            “But we need to tell Father.”

            She sighed.  “I… you know what he’ll do, Carver.  It’ll end badly.”

            “Well, fine, then, let’s go get Sean and tell him to tell Father.”

            She shook her head abruptly.  “That’ll just end worse!  He’ll just get—”

            “Then we need to tell father instead,” he insisted and Bethany knew he had her cornered.  She leaned away and rubbed at her face again.  It must have been terribly red by that point, she thought.  She looked around for Chomper and realized that the dog wasn’t around.  Oh well.  He’d probably gone off to find his master.  Bethany sighed, the sick feeling in her stomach from earlier reaching all new levels. 

            “Okay,” she nodded, unable to help the hopelessness of that little admission.  “We’ll tell Father.  Maker, this isn’t going to go over well…”

            “Tell me about it,” Carver muttered darkly.

* * *

 

 

            It didn’t go over well.

            On the plus side, Bethany finally discovered which side of the family Carver got that surly, dark glare of his from.  It was definitely from her father’s.

            He was quiet.  Still.  His hands clasped on the table in front of her, unmoving.   Bethany didn’t dare meet his eyes because she wasn’t certain of what she’d find in them.  Anger, she could understand and maybe endure.  Understanding, she wasn’t sure if she could deal with that.  Frustration she could handle, as well as sadness or uncertainty, but it was certainty that she feared.  Determination.  Because that would mean that he had already made up his mind, and when Malcolm Hawke makes up his mind, no force of this world or the next would change it.

            So she looked at her mother instead, and the expression on her mother’s face nearly broke her heart.  It was pure hopelessness mixed with the same terrible trepidation that Bethany herself felt.  She found it difficult to look away and break the stricken, blue-eyed gaze but eventually managed to do so and accidentally caught her father’s eyes instead.  Golden brown met hazel.

            She was trapped. 

            Malcolm Hawke said nothing for a long time and thank the Maker Carver hadn’t decided to break the silence with some tactless remark.  Bethany knew that if Sean had been there, he would’ve taken the bait, and it just would’ve made things worse, so she thanked her mother for instilling some sense of common decency into her twin.  But Malcolm still said nothing.

            Then, quiet and expressionless, “We leave tomorrow.”

            Some part of Bethany’s bones knew this, this exact situation, this exact conversation, as if she’d had it in a dream the other night or if she’d seen it played by an acting troupe somewhere before.  Some part of her gut had done this song and dance before, and some other part of her rose up and possessed her to say, “No.”

            His eyes narrowed, distilled into cold little icy spheres.  She’d seen the same look on Carver’s face.  _He has more in common with father than me even with my magic_ , she thought idly.  “Excuse me?”

            “No,” she said simply. 

            His nostrils flared but that was the only sign of irritation or emotion.  He fixed his daughter with his most expressionless, guarded face yet.  “I don’t think you’re in a position to argue, Bethany,” he told her firmly.  _Ah,_ a part of her sighed.  _So it’s come to_ this _stage already.  He’s not even trying to lie anymore._

            But she wasn’t going to let him win.  “No, Father,” she said, matching his even tone.  “Maybe I made a mistake – by using my magic to _save_ _a small boy_ , but I’m not—”

            “Bethany,” her father cut her off, suddenly sighing.  His guarded expression broke and she saw the emotions flit across, one by one – fear, worry, exhaustion, love – till they all stopped and meshed into one very open and very concerned-looking father.  “Bethany, you did nothing wrong.  Don’t even think that.”

            She was suddenly rather mad, and she didn’t really know why.  “Then why do you want us to leave?”  She demanded.

            He wiped a hand across his brow and sighed again.  “You know the process just as well as I, sweetheart – sooner or later the templars always find a way.  It doesn’t end.  So we leave and find a new place.  We start again.”

            Bethany looked to her mother desperately but Leandra Hawke was still passively speechless.  She frowned.  So, she was on her own with this one.  “No.  We-you—no.  Lothering… Dad, ugh.”  She was grasping for words, trying to find the right ones, the right form, anything.  She wanted…

            “What?”

            “It’s not—”

            “It is,” her father declared loudly.  “It always is.  You know this.  You have to.”

            “But…”  she couldn’t finish the thought—

            “Lothering is our home.”  Carver finished it for her.  She looked over at her twin brother gratefully, sharing a silent exchange.  You always read my mind, she silently told him.  Of course, idiot, he wordlessly said.  We’re twins.  I always know. 

            “It’s _home_ ,” Bethany said, this time much more confidently.  “And even though…Daddy, you always said I shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed of my magic.”

            “I did,” Malcolm Hawke conceded, a bit uneasily.

            “Running away hasn’t gotten us anywhere, and the only thing that running away would prove now is that I’m ashamed or embarrassed to have my gift.  I’m not.  Life would have been easier without it but I’m not ashamed.”  She paused, rubbing her face a bit in frustration.  “That…that little boy… he didn’t hate me,” she added, this time much more quietly and much more uneasily.  “He thought it was the most amazing thing he ever saw.  I saw, I saw it in his eyes, he… no one’s ever looked at me that way.  He was just a child.  Maybe that’s why, because he didn’t understand – but when he gets older, he will.  The Chantry will tell him that mages are bad things that should be locked away, the whole lot of us.  I saved his life and he’ll still grow up to hate mages, and I can’t change that.”  Bethany took a deep breath, hoping that she sounded more confident about her little speech than she felt.  “All I can change is what _I_ do.  And if the templars are going to hunt us forever, than what does running away from them prove?  If they’re going to keep hunting, than someday they’ll catch us.  They’re relentless.  And I can’t run forever.  If I didn’t do anything wrong, than I shouldn’t _have_ to run, should I?”

            Malcolm Hawke sighed for the third time that night.  How he’d raised such a little idealistic daughter under his own nose, he didn’t know.  “In an ideal world, that would be true, but Bethany, I—”

            “She’s right, dear,” Leandra suddenly interrupted. The three people in the room turned almost comically to stare at her.  “Bethany’s right,” she clarified, “we shouldn’t have to run.  And we won’t.”  She looked straight at her daughter and smiled a bit weakly.  “We won’t.”

            Malcolm Hawke was in stunned disbelief.   “Leandra, we can’t—”

            “Yes we can, darling,” she told him quite primly.  “Bethany made a point that she insisted she didn’t perform magic in front of the child.  Whether or not he believed her, the templars aren’t going to come knocking on our doors because of a simple rumor based off of one child’s witness.”

            “Thank you, Mother,” Bethany beamed.

            “However,” she added, holding up a finger, “we need to be more careful than ever.  One child is hardly a witness, but we have to take precautions.  That means no more practicing in this household.”  She looked very pointedly at her husband.  “And no more using magic to start fires, convenient as it is.  Or to clean.  Or to do anything, really.  We can’t give the templars any form of reasonable doubt.  Bethany,” she looked back to her daughter, frowning, “you and I should go to the Chantry more often.  Be more social.  We’ll a little isolated out here.  Become more involved in the community.  It will look less suspicious.”  She smiled gently.  “We’re not running away this time.  This is our home.”

            Malcolm Hawke was still in stunned disbelief.  “Are you out of your mind?”  He roared, slamming his fist on the table.  “At any moment we have to be able to pick up everything and run.  You know this.  I know this.  Our children know it.  It’s our life.  We’ve known this ever since we came to Ferelden, that our magic would mark us.  We cannot fight this, Leandra.  Some things – templars, _especially_ , loveoftheMaker, _templars! –_ cannot be faced!  And I will _not_ lose my only daughter to those bastards.  We can’t chance it.  Not in the least.”

            Leandra rather tenderly placed her hand over her husband’s and told him, quite calmly, with a gentle smile, “you convinced me to leave Kirkwall with you, love, and against my better judgment I said to the Void with logic and templars.  Without you, Bethany would’ve been lost to their hands long before this.  It would’ve been inevitable, and you and I both know it.  We won’t lose her to them yet.  Lothering—”

            “To Hell with Lothe—”

            She raised her other hand to calm him.  “Lothering is our home now,” she said, echoing Carver’s words.  “There’s no avoiding it.  We’ve built things here, dear, things we can’t replace – our lives, our loves… this little place, this hamlet is our home.  How long has it been since we’ve had a place to call home?  And I won’t lose it to the templars either, but we can’t solve this by up and leaving again.”

            Carver and Bethany shared another Look.  “I’m bloody tired of running,” he said quietly. 

            Bethany looked to her father who was lost briefly in Leandra’s eyes.  Her parents were having one of _those_ moments.  It made Bethany briefly and absurdly happy.  It meant her mother was getting through to her father, finally.  “I won’t let my magic destroy this,” she said quite seriously.  “I won’t.  Daddy, you said our magic wasn’t a curse if it served the best in us.  I can’t hide, but I can’t run either, or the templars may as well have already won.”

            Another few moments passed in silence.  Instead of trying to avoid her father’s gaze as she did before, she sought to hold it.  She knew she wasn’t necessarily wise, or necessarily as world-weary as her parents.  She knew she was sheltered and as a result somewhat naïve, but she knew this with absolute certainty.  Her mother was right – Lothering was their home now and come what may.  They couldn’t abandon it because of some wild rumor from a little boy about Bethany being a mage, no matter how true the rumor was.  It wasn’t right or fair.  Not to her family, and not to her – under no circumstances would she ever let herself become ashamed of her magic.  Not even after the long lecture in Gwaren shortly before they’d left when Bethany had inadvertently revealed her talent to that templar had made her ashamed, not even the least bit, of what she was.  Because she’d been taught since birth that it was not any more of a crime to live as it was to be a mage, and even if during her quiet moments she resented the impact that her magic had had on her family’s life, she didn’t regret it.  She wouldn’t let herself.  She couldn’t.  That wasn’t what her family had taught her to believe.  And she wouldn’t let her magic or the regret of it destroy their lives, even if it meant facing the templars at their door in the morning, foolish as anyone else thought it was.

            On some level, Malcolm Hawke knew this, because on some level, at some time, he had to have felt the same.  And his daughter Bethany Hawke knew that he knew this.  He had to have known because he was the one who had taught her everything she knew and had told her from the moment she was born that her magic wasn’t a curse, or a gift really, it just simply was. That running, in the long term, would only make them seem guilty of something they hadn’t done.

            He sighed, the fourth time that day.  This time, in defeat.  His daughter smiled and looked to her twin apprehensively.  He shrugged, just as uneasy as she was. 

            Then, her father smirked and had to ask the dreaded question, “So, what are we going to tell your brother?”

            Bethany buried her face in her hands and felt like weeping all over again, for different reasons this time.  Sean.  Ugh.  She’d forgotten about Sean.  This was going to be ugly.  The oldest child of the Hawke family was three times as stubborn as her father and had significantly less patience for these matters. 

           “Not it,” cried Carver suddenly, and she looked up at him blearily.  He folded his arms and shook his head abruptly, “uh-uh, I’m not going to be the one to tell him,” he defended.  “No way.  Not it.”

            Just as Bethany was about to work some kind of excuse about how she conveniently would have to leave the house before Sean came home and how she simply couldn’t come back until much, much, much later due to some kind of event, maybe Melissa-related, or Chantry-related – just as she was on the cusp of making up such a story, Sean chose to walk in.

            Bethany groaned and banged her head on the table.  Her father looked down at her and she thought he saw a bit of a smirk.  She tried to glare but she wasn’t very good at looking angry or upset.  She didn’t like getting mad, mostly because when she got truly angry she started crying and that was very embarrassing.  So she just chose to look mildly irritated instead and counted backwards from twenty in her head.

            She and Carver shared another Look, and he was totally unsympathetic.  Uh-uh, he shook his head, you’re dealing with him.  Not me.  No fucking way.  You’re such a wretch, she told him wearily and turned to face her older brother.

            Sean Hawke looked very, very confused at the assembly before him and scratched at his stubble.  “Did someone die?”  he asked bluntly.  “Is this a funeral?”  He looked down at Chomper who’d arrived with him and scratched his mabari’s ears.  “Why didn’t you _tell_ me someone died, you mangy git?”  Chomper whined and scratched his side.

            “No, no one died, son,” Leandra said and smiled, but the smile disappeared quickly in the aftermath of the discussion that had taken place before Sean entered the room.

            The eldest Hawke shifted from foot to foot in trepidation.  “Is it… oh Andraste’s tits, is this an intervention?  Don’t keep me in suspense.”

            Bethany looked up at him curiously, head cocked to the side.  “Why on earth would we give you an intervention?”

            “Beats me,” he shrugged, still eyeing the scene suspiciously, “I don’t _nearly_ drink that much.  Or hardly at all,” he added quickly, shooting a glance at his mother who frowned in disapproval.  “Furthermore, you didn’t hear anything, that’s nonsense, I never said that, and I don’t even know what you’re talking about!  Anyway, could someone sometime today tell me what’s going on?  You’re making me very nervous and I’m all out of jokes.”

            Carver snorted.  “That’s a first.”

            “There’s a first for everything.  Seriously, what happened?  Wait, did someone… actually die?”  He shook his head and scratched at his hair, shocked.  “Don’t tell me I was really being that tactless.”

            “Hardly, Sean,” their father interjected.  “Nobody died.  Someone nearly _did_ ,” Bethany winced at this pointed reference, “but no one actually died.”

            “Just a little incident, that’s all,” their mother added in lightly.  She looked at Bethany.  “Would you care to explain to your brother?”

            No, she wanted to say, _no I do not, because he’s going to be yelling at me for the next two years._ She reasoned though that Sean would probably be only yelling at her because he cared about her, and that was the nature of family sometimes.  It wasn’t a very comforting thought though.  The eldest Hawke could be quite stringent when he so desired.

            “Well,” she began, wondering where to start, forming a story in her mind.  Then she decided to just wing it.  She figured, what would Sean do?  And Sean would wing it.  Give him a taste of his own medicine.  See how it worked.  “I killed a couple of wolves with magic in front of a little boy.”    

            Sean stared at her in complete blankness for a few seconds.  “W-what?  Sister, you… _what?_ ”  He finally spluttered.

            “The kid’s fine,” she told him matter-of-fact, “and all in all we probably _won’t_ have templars knocking at the door, but you never know.  What, Chomper didn’t tell you?  He was there for the whole thing…”  She looked down at the mabari, counted _one, two, three_ in her head and braced herself for the coming storm, leaning as far back in her chair away from Sean’s darkening visage as humanly possible.  Carver slowly and surely backed out of the room, probably doing the same countdown in his head, and stuck his fingers in his ears.  She looked back at him and frowned.  He stuck out his tongue at her.  She couldn’t bring herself to roll her eyes at him, even – she felt betrayed, that Carver was leaving her there to face her brother’s horrifyingly chaotic wrath alone with nothing but her parents for backup.  She could almost literally feel the energy being sucked out of the room and begin swirling around her older brother in a maelstrom of what Sean himself would probably call “pure shit-your-pants.”

           An hour later and only partially deaf, Bethany admitted to Carver that the idea had worked out better in her head, but all in all was probably for the best.  Sean never took bad news well and had a temper and a mabari to match.  Bethany just counted herself lucky that her father had taught her a small healing spell a week ago that would probably help with the partial-deafness.  (She didn’t even bother to hope that there weren’t any templars in the vicinity to sense the spell – in all likelihood they probably were nearby but it was almost impossible that they’d be able to pay attention to a slight twinge of magic over the ruckus Sean was causing.  She nearly caught herself at one point telling him to ‘shout louder, brother, I don’t think they can hear you in Antiva’; she didn’t know what would’ve happened if she _had_ said that, but it probably wouldn’t have been pretty.  Sean, somewhat of a hypocrite, absolutely could not tolerate people using his own sarcasm against him when he was pissed off.)

* * *

 

 

           Nightmares weren’t a stranger to Bethany.  She’d had them most of her life.  At some point, she wasn’t sure when, she got used to waking up in the middle of the night, terrified that she’d become an abomination or there was one standing over her or that the templars were putting her to the sword or dragging her away from her family.  She had reasoned that her fears were perfectly reasonable ones to have, being an apostate and raised on the belief that templars were essentially less-intelligent mabari encased in tin cans with a penchant for capturing and imprisoning innocent mages and ripping the magic right from their souls with secret tricks of the trade.

           Bethany had never quite reconciled her inherent fear of templars with the image of templars she had now at her current age.  She wasn’t sure what exactly had changed, or when it had changed.  She’d seen them, talked with them, and while she was terrified of them for the fear that they’d discover what she was, she ultimately couldn’t look at them and seen what she’d seen through the rose-tinted gaze of her childhood.  They were men and women, quite the same as the men and women she encountered every day.  Well, not the same exactly.  They did have the ability to rip the mana from a mage with an arbitrary thought, but that was no stranger than the ability she had to start arbitrary fires with her mind. 

           Bethany knew these things and yet couldn’t shake her fear.  A small part of her insisted that all she was and all she ever would be stood against everything the templars existed for.  A small part of her knew that to be true and couldn’t shake the inconvenient, insistent doubt that her fears weren’t entirely justified.  No matter what she did, however, her fear of them wasn’t something she could quell.  She couldn’t control the terror that seized her whenever she saw that flaming sword, those iconic helmets, the sound of metal boots clanking in synchronicity; there was something about those things that was beyond her control and called out to her not as Bethany, but as a mage and to her magic, as an apostate on the run.  No matter how hard she tried against it, when it came down to the very basics, Bethany Hawke was terrified of templars.

           Now, more so than ever:  her nightmares as a child had returned with a vengeance.  Each night she woke up, paralyzed quite helplessly in the imagined terror of whatever her dreams had conjured up.  Each night it was something new.  It mostly involved templars.  Her sixteenth birthday passed three days after the incident with the boy near the forest almost unnoticed – she hardly remembered that she was now older.  Carver had been the one to remind her.  It had been his birthday too, after all.  She told him that she didn’t feel older, only younger, like a little child again.  He shrugged and said he didn’t really feel different either.

           She hated being afraid.  She hated the sick feeling in her stomach every day, and with each day it increased.  Some irritating part of her mind wouldn’t be quiet and let her rest – it told her that no matter what she thought, nothing was over.  The danger hadn’t passed yet.  It would never end.

           Bethany knew many things.  She knew how to cast several elemental and primal spells.  She knew at least one healing spell.  She knew that demons were bad, but spirits weren’t necessarily good, and she knew how to resist them.  She knew that templars weren’t bad, but they weren’t necessarily good, and she knew how to avoid them.  She knew what plants were safe and what ones weren’t.  She knew how to run and when to run.  She couldn’t help that every instinct she had told her to run far away from Lothering the minute after the argument with her father and her eldest brother. 

           She hated being indecisive.  She couldn’t help it.  She had never been good at making split-second decisions or finding her own way.  She was used to having her family hiding her away and keeping her safe; she was used to having Sean on hand to fight off evil and fast-talk their way out of trouble.  She was used to having Carver punch any boy that had ever confessed to liking her in front of him.  She was used to having her father instruct her each day on the proper use of magic and how to hide it from others.  She loved her family with all her being, but she didn’t like it, the way they always had to look after her. She didn’t know any other way and didn’t want any other way.  She was happy with her family and her home but she had never been quite… content.  Which, in all honesty, was a slightly frightening realization.  She had always been certain that she had been content, up until now, when she realized that her nagging doubts had a really good point.

           “Maker,” she muttered to herself, “now I know how Carver feels.”

           Her twin had always foundered wherever they went.  She knew he felt overshadowed by Sean.  Sean, whether or not he realized it, didn’t do much to help that.  She got the feeling that he knew at least on some level, which is where her brothers’ rivalry stemmed from, but she also knew that on some level that he cared, which is why he did it.  Sean was all about protecting the family.  Carver never had been.  She supposed she couldn’t blame her twin brother for not really caring, because Sean was overbearing enough for the lot of them.  It was the part of her older brother that she found most endearing and the part that annoyed the most out of her other brother.  Carver was never too fond of emotion or big dramatic displays.  He was always independent, but knew where his priorities were.  That is, he knew that his priorities weren’t important in the face of other’s priorities.  As a result, he was never content, and never quite happy with Lothering.

           Bethany understood that.  She felt some of it too, now.  It wasn’t quite the same thing.  She loved Lothering.  She didn’t founder here, she had a place here – they all did.  Carver could argue all he wanted about it but it was true.  They’d found a niche, the lot of them.  But Bethany sometimes felt that wherever she was, no matter what she was doing, she was a square peg fitting in round hole.  She knew that Carver felt the same, but for different reasons; he foundered because of his personality, because of Sean, because of who she was and who her father was.  She foundered because she was an apostate.  She had never felt the same overshadowed feeling that Carver had felt towards her eldest brother.  She had never really felt any rivalry at all towards her siblings, aside from the times Carver teased her and had nailed her pigtails to her bed when she was little.  She’d gotten along well with most of the people she met in life.  She didn’t like conflict and didn’t go out of her way to promote it like Carver.  But she understood exactly why he did.

           She didn’t like feeling that way.  She didn’t like the realization that she had always, on some small level, felt that way.  She didn’t like being afraid of it.  And above all, she was sick of it – sick of feeling sick, sick of discontent, and sick of hiding.

           It was almost a relief to finally admit it to herself.  She of course felt guilty that she felt resentful of her family in the slightest for it, but it was there, out there – and there was no hiding from it any more.  No, she was sick of hiding from it.  She didn’t want to be hidden anymore.  She had to be, she knew, but she didn’t have to like it, and as irritating as that was it was freeing to know it finally for herself.

           She wondered vaguely if it was similar to how her father had felt in the Circle in … wherever it was her father had been.  She doubted it, really.  He rarely if ever talked to her about the Circle, despite how curious she was about it.  In the end, she supposed it didn’t matter.  It’s where all mages eventually ended up, one way or another.

           Bethany had been more discreet in visiting the Lothering Chantry.  She’d stopped talking with the sisters and instead went about her mandatory pretending-to-pray.  She believed in the Maker well enough, she supposed, but didn’t much like the Chantry’s idea of their Apathetic God.  She wasn’t quite sure what she believed, actually, but whatever it was, it wasn’t the Chantry’s belief.  The same Maker Sister Ardalace and Sister Yvette worshipped couldn’t have been the same Maker that made mages.  It just didn’t make sense.

           She was currently in the Chantry, doing another pretend-prayer.  She was with her mother.  _Mum is praying for real_ , she noted silently.  Her mother always did.  Bethany sometimes wondered why, but supposed it didn’t really matter. 

           She looked up, noted most of the people’s heads in the Chantry were down.  Today there were no templars besides the two at the entrance that were always there, each day, as guards of a kind.  Bethany had a good memory.  She’d made a schedule for what days the templars would be crowding the Chantry and what days they wouldn’t.  The Knight-Commander was somewhere outside the town, that was all she knew.  He’d been gone for a few days.  Good enough for her.  Less templars around, the better.

           The Chanter standing upon the central dais raised his voice, his cadence changing as he began part of the Canticle of Threnodies.  Bethany sighed.  She hated this one.  It was all about depressing things, like the darkspawn.  And mankind’s sin that created them.  She was a bit naïve (at least she could admit it, even if she didn’t like it – she couldn’t help it if she was sheltered) but she liked to think that she had the sense to question the whole ‘man created his own destruction’ theory about the darkspawn.  She wasn’t even sure that the Black City was real.  She’d seen something akin to dark floating islands in the distance whenever she was aware in the Fade or in her dreams (which was right around the time she woke up), but she didn’t think it proved much.

           She sighed lightly.  Her mother nudged her elbow and Bethany squeaked and immediately put her head back down, pretending to pray.  She caught a smile that tugged at the edge of her mother’s mouth.

           Leandra and her daughter left for home after about another half hour of the Chant.  There was only so much solemn prayer and pretend-worshipping someone could take.  Bethany wondered as she and her mother walked back home in silence if the Maker, all-knowing as he was, knew about her fake praying.  _I suppose He doesn’t mind.  I haven’t been struck by lightning yet, after all, so that has to account for something._

           Bethany and her family hadn’t said much to each other in the past few days.  Even her birthday had passed in relative silence.  After the magic incident, they had all been left very justifiably paranoid.  She’d received some books and new clothes.   Helped her father track down some elusive herbs just outside of Lothering using her odd plant-locating skills.  She hadn’t had the heart lately to go flower-picking.  Nothing spectacular had happened and each uneventful moment just left Bethany more and more unsettled.

 _What am I expecting?_   She frowned to herself briefly but wiped the frown off her face as she opened the door to their home for her mother. 

           She hated the feeling, waiting for the inevitable.  Waiting for… something she couldn’t quite name.  Apprehension.  That was the word she was looking for.  She hated it.  She hated being afraid, she hated her nagging doubts, and hated being hidden, and hated the fact that she felt any of those things.  She’d often fantasized that she could be brave and charge off into the sunset or somesuch.  She’d often wondered what would have happened to her if she had been as brave as, say, Sean.  He was the brave one.  Carver was as well, but compared to the older Hawke he was more reckless than anything. 

           The days following her incident passed soberly and sedately.  In hindsight, it reminded Bethany of a funeral procession, _but hindsight is always perfect, isn’t it?_   Those few days she felt bottled, tight, and insecure, like a thing about to explode.  She didn’t sleep very often, opting to spend the nights staring at the ceiling and taking intermittent naps in the day.  The days were dreamless, which was a comfort.  The nights were just awful.  Every time the sun came down she half expected that every single clanking sound she heard – the house creaking, her father doing some inexplicable thing, Carver’s muttering, Sean hanging up his sword – every sound had the potential to be a templar at the door.  She wasn’t normally a paranoid person but she couldn’t help but feel that her family was being lax, that they weren’t taking all the noises seriously enough.  One time, it _would_ be a templar, and then guess who would be sorry?  But she also knew that this was most likely the lack of sleep talking.  It wasn’t healthy.  She didn’t like it.

           Out of all the things Bethany hated, which were really few and far between – she didn’t think of herself as a hateful person and tried her best to be nice and polite – but out of all the things, waiting was the worst.  She could be patient when she wanted to be, but wasn’t patient by nature.  She and Carver shared that the most.  She knew that he felt the same things she did, whenever the impatience kicked in.  She knew that he knew she knew she felt the same, for all the sense that made.  The only real difference between her and her twin was that she didn’t act on it.  She didn’t, because she was afraid.

           Bethany was so very, very tired of being afraid.  So tired that when everything finally did explode, when the glass finally came down and it all shattered to bits, not one inch of her was surprised.  Well, she was actually idly surprised that she hadn’t been surprised, but that didn’t count.  Not a bit of her hadn’t anticipated this.  Not a single part of her, body, mind, or soul, had doubted that it would happen.  She’d hoped, oh yes, how she’d hoped it wouldn’t, and all of her pretend-prayers at the Chantry had been devoted to that hope that it wouldn’t happen.  It did, though, against all her hope.  _If this is the Maker’s sense of humor, getting back at me for all the pretend prayers, his sense of humor is worse than my brothers’._  

           All the waiting, all the nightmares, all her conviction when she’d faced her father down and told him quite bluntly that there was no force in the Fade or on the earth that could make her run away, all of it was gone.  It was almost a relief, really, to finally realize it and admit it to herself.  Almost.  She of course felt guilty that she was relieved in the slightest for it, but it was there, out there – and there was no hiding from it any more.  No, she was sick of hiding from it.  She didn’t want to be hidden anymore.  She had to be, she knew, but she didn’t have to like it, and as irritating as that was it was freeing to know it finally for herself.

           It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, but in some ways, the most simple thing in the world.  _How could something so painful be so simple?_

* * *

 

 

 

           It was Knight-Commander Bryant at the door. 

           Mother was gone, gone away with promises she’d return soon.  Father was away, away busy with his work as he always was.  Carver was off, off doing Carver-like things.  Sean was off, off doing Sean-like things.  Bethany was left alone.  Well, Chomper was with her, as usual, but she wasn’t sure the mabari really counted as intelligent as he was.  Bethany was definitely alone for one of the very few times she’d gotten to be left alone in recent days.  Especially after the incident with the child in the outskirts.  _Why can’t I wash that boy’s face from my mind…_ The family had essentially vowed to never, ever, under any circumstances, leave Bethany alone ever again.  Not because they didn’t trust her, but they couldn’t protect her secret when they were away from her.  Mother had left only shortly, saying she’d be back oh-so-very-soon and that leaving Bethany alone for a few moments really wouldn’t do much harm.  Bethany could take care of herself.  Dear, sweet, darling little Bethany, do be safe, you hear? 

           Bethany wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.  She was startled that a part of her found Ser Bryant’s grim face funny at all, in an ironic, morbid sort of way – was she finally picking up on Carver’s sense of humor?  Or was this Sean’s influence?  Her brothers’ aside, Bethany was alone, very much alone, and very, very tired of everything.  She was tired because of her lack of sleep.  She was tired of her dreams.  She was tired of being scared.  She was tired of being tired.  She was tired of it all.  And most of all, she was tired of running away from something that under no circumstances would ever fear, would ever sleep, or ever tire.  It would keep running after her no matter how good she was at running or how fast she could sprint; it would always find her, always catch up with her, always mark her for what she was.

           Magic. _My blasted magic._

           She wasn’t ashamed of it.  But she did resent it, if only a tiny bit.

           Maybe it was ironic then that Ser Bryant’s face looked oh-so-very-tired.  He looked older than when she’d last glimpsed him in the Chantry, which had been several weeks ago.  His hair looked grayer, but that could have been Bethany’s active imagination.  His face looked gaunt, his eyes were distant.  He’d left town for some templar business, she wasn’t sure what it was, and she didn’t keep herself updated on it.  It didn’t matter, because he was back, and he was at Bethany’s doorstep.

           Her first instinct, despite how very tired she was of it, was to tense up and be suspicious.  She felt a bit at first like a deer catching the gaze of the hunter.  The templar hunter, anyway.  She stared at Ser Bryant for a few seconds before opening her mouth and asking shakily, “Um, can I help you Knight-Commander?”

           She knew she wasn’t fooling anyone, and she wasn’t going to try to.  She wouldn’t bring up the incident by any means but she didn’t leave out the vain possibility that this didn’t have to do with the little boy and the wolves.  She hoped it didn’t, but it was an _incredibly_ vain hope.  She had to wonder when she’d become so pessimistic – she hadn’t felt this way a few weeks ago.  _It’s the lack of sleep.  The dreams.  Or Carver rubbing off on me – it has to be…_

           Ser Bryant took but a moment to respond.  “Miss Hawke, is it?”

           “Bethany,” she corrected immediately. 

           “And you are home alone?”

           She looked around and caught Chomper’s worried gaze.  She reached down and patted his ears fondly, feeling a bit nostalgic all the sudden.  Chomper was a good dog.  He’d chewed up a bandit that had tried to attack her once.  He’d always protected them.  “More or less.  If you count my brother’s dog as company.”  Bethany hesitated, closed her eyes, and swallowed.  The sick feeling in her stomach that had been there all these past days was becoming something else, swirling and turning and morphing into ugly butterflies.  She took a deep breath and clenched the door more tightly.  She looked up at the Knight-Commander and his grim face, knowing that she was unable to disguise the fear in her eyes.  “If… it’s important… Mother should be home in but a minute.”

           Ser Bryant nodded.  “It is a matter of importance, yes, and I would like to speak to your mother, but first I must speak with you.”  His gaze was rather pointed and Bethany knew without explanation that _he knew._

           He had to.  She didn’t want to think about it but there wasn’t any avoiding it.  That’s what she told her father, wasn’t it? Maybe the feeling in her stomach these past days hadn’t been some kind of sickness, or a lingering intense fear, but a sense of guilt.  She knew it was going to happen.

           Not an inch of her was surprised.  Not a single part.

           She nodded at the Knight-Commander, feeling more resigned than she had ever felt in her life.  She opened the door widely and stepped aside.  She hesitated a bit before asking, “Would you like to come in?”  because she didn’t want to be the one to tell her father that she’d invited a templar, much less the Knight-Commander of all things, into their home.

           But there was no avoiding it anymore.

           Chomper wouldn’t stop growling.  She tried to shush him but he kept snarling violently.  Bethany tugged at his ears and kicked him lightly on the behind but he kept on growling.  She didn’t really have to heart to tell him that there wasn’t anything to growl about anymore, since it was already done.

           At some point she found herself sitting opposite the Knight-Commander at the dinner table, eyes downcast.  Maybe it was awkward but if it was, she couldn’t feel it.  The blood was roaring in her ears, drowning out all other sounds.  Her hands started shaking again.  It was just like a dream she’d had the other night, only quite real and quite devastating.

           She couldn’t recall most of the conversation that passed, but essentially what it amounted to was simple.  He was very well aware of the incident, and not because of the boy.  A separate witness.  She bit her tongue before she could ask, ‘but I didn’t see anyone else,’ and opted to stare blankly at the table.  She tried to think about what her father would do in her situation but her mind kept coming up blank, and she couldn’t think straight over the roaring sound in her ears.  Ser Bryant, by contrast, was very calm and subdued.  She felt anything but.  She felt like bolting, like making a break for the door – any second now – but the same part of her that was bluntly not surprised by anything that was happening stayed her hand.  There was no point, it said.  No point at all.  Besides, if she bolted, the templars might decide to kill her, and she didn’t want to die.

           Ser Bryant in an infuriatingly calm tone of voice told her exactly those words she had nightmares about – that he knew she was an apostate.  And that there were going to be consequences.

           She stared blankly at the table in front of her, unable to think, unable to comprehend… she swallowed and met the templar’s gaze.  It was surprisingly sympathetic, she noted.  Well.  How odd.  “What consequences?”  She asked quietly.  It came out more like a squeak and she had enough sense to be a bit embarrassed by that.

           He told her exactly what they were.  That under normal circumstances, she would be executed for being an apostate, but the considering her age and the circumstance of her family she would be spared and instead would be taken away from here and transferred to the Circle of Magi by Lake Calenhad where she belonged.  She would be placed ‘under observation’ for a time.  In the event that she was revealed to have learned forbidden magics during her illegal residence outside the tower, the templars would not hesitate to kill her.

           “I didn’t,” she told him, more quiet than before.  “I mean, I don’t…”  She couldn’t hold his gaze anymore and it clattered silently and wordlessly to the ground, heavier than her brother’s hammer on the anvil.  Chomper finally stopped growling and began whimpering at her side.  She rubbed his ears out of habit.

           Ser Bryant told her quite firmly that she was to leave for the tower in the company of four templars and himself the following morning, and if she ran away before that time they would be obligated to punish her family and hunt her down.  He didn’t add the ultimatum, ‘and execute you,’ but Bethany heard it all the same.  She knew the law that the templars abided by well – her father had been instructing her about it her whole life, from the moment she was old enough to read.  She didn’t think it would be worth it, to run before the morning when they came to take her away.  She was so tired of running…

           One of the worst feelings was that she knew she’d still be running, if only she hadn’t said no to her father.  She would be safe and everyone would be fine, if she hadn’t been stubborn.  She did her best to strangle that feeling of guilt.

           A thought struck her suddenly, _what am I going to tell mum?_   And it paralyzed her with a whole new kind of terror.  _Maker_ … she felt like crying, but felt paradoxically as if she were dry of tears.  What was there to cry about?  She wondered.  _It was the natural course of events… Ser Bryant is doing his duty… I belong at the Tower, with the other…_

           She buried her face in her hands and breathed several shuddering breaths, in and out.  Her father.  What was he going to do?  How would he react?  He couldn’t… he would kill the whole world if it meant protecting her, or any of his children.  She knew that, and up until this moment it had never scared her before.  He’d passed that trait onto his sons.  She didn’t even want to think about how Sean would react.  She couldn’t imagine…

           No, she could, very vividly, and it was terrifying.

           But _Mother…she could be back… at any second…_

           Bethany looked up at the door, her heart skipping several beats.  Ser Bryant watched her calmly, coolly, and she shivered a bit.  She bit her lip and looked back at him.  “Mother isn’t… she isn’t going to take this w…” she didn’t bother finishing the sentence.  She wasn’t sure she could.

           Knight-Commander Bryant surprised her by saying, “I understand.”

           She looked him back in the eyes and there was that oddly sympathetic look there.  She found she was a tad grateful for that despite the fact that his presence here in her home spelled her extrication from everything she knew and loved.  And she did generally fear and hate all templars to a certain degree.  “I hope so,” she admitted honestly.

           Bethany was exhausted by the time her mother did come home.  She’d gone through too many emotions in the space of too little time.  First terror, then guilt, then frustration, then back to terror, exhaustion, more guilt, grief, and then finally numbness.  There was a slight ache she felt when she watched her mother’s expression as she caught sight of the Knight-Commander, but overall she felt nothing; a cold, dull, numb.

           She’d been right, of course, that her mother wouldn’t take it well.  First there was the initial denial – the pretend-surprise, ‘what a surprise, what are _you_ doing here?’ then the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and the ‘ ** _my_** daughter?  A **_mage?_**   Don’t be silly, Knight-Commander.’  Following that was the inevitable realization that there was no avoiding this, the plea-bargaining, the supplications.  Bethany almost couldn’t bear and kept her eyes firmly locked on the ground throughout.  She didn’t want to see her mother’s tears.  She didn’t want to have to cry.

           But it was inevitable, wasn’t it?  Bethany looked up and saw the stark expression on her mother’s face and felt hot tears well up in her eyes.  “Bethany, no, no,” her mother was mumbling over and over again, as if repetition alone would make it untrue.  

           “Mother, I…” Bethany wanted to say that she was sorry but that would be useless.  Her mother nearly drowned her in a desperate, breath-quenching embrace instead, Leandra’s sobs wracking both of their bodies, as if she held onto her daughter long enough she wouldn’t be taken away.  Bethany didn’t bother with apologies or useless words and tried to quiet her mother’s wailing instead.  It didn’t work well.

           All the while she was still wondering, _Mother’s here… what do I tell Father?  Or… or my brothers… oh, Carver._

* * *

 

 

           Bethany had made it a point, when things were dark and still and all else seemed lost, to use the stillness to silently count the gifts the Maker had given her.  It was what her mother, Leandra, had taught her to do – on occasion, when life seemed to crumble all around her, Leandra Hawke could be found at the Chantry, praying for a peace of mind.

           When Bethany first prayed to Andraste, she was certain that she would be struck by lightning for being a mage who _dared_ to set foot in a Chantry, but to her immense surprise, nothing happened.  She felt pretty normal afterwards, well, as normal as Bethany Hawke ever felt.  The cool and peaceful feeling her mother described whenever she prayed wasn’t what Bethany felt, but because it made her mother happy, Bethany had formed a habit of going to the Chantry and praying with her.  Sometimes, instead of praying, Bethany would daydream, or count the threads in her skirt, or mentally going over the lessons her father gave her – anything to pass the time.  It was rare when Bethany _did_ pray, but she’d been known to, on occasion.  She didn’t really feel anything special about it.  She had never been sincere about praying, since she felt that the Maker really didn’t deserve her thanks and supplications after plopping her mage-butt down on this world full of templars and discrimination.  She never voiced these things to her mother, since there wasn’t anything to be gained from that area of discussion, though it’s what she felt in her heart.

           For the first time since she could remember, that night, Bethany Hawke prayed.  She did not pray to the Maker, or to Andraste – but pray she did, to any God who listened.  The night was dark and quiet, and Bethany was numb.  She prayed that she would stay numb, because she didn’t want to feel scared anymore.  She prayed that her nightmares would end.  She prayed that her family would be safe, that her brothers would stay out of trouble, and that the horror stories she’d heard about the Tower weren’t true.  After she was done pleading to the silence, she began to count, one by one, the precious things in her life she was grateful for: her brothers, for protecting her, her father, for teaching her how to protect herself, her mother, for loving her, for Melissa, the first ‘normal’ friend she’d ever had… she continued on into the night until she felt satisfied that she’d counted enough blessings, even though she didn’t know who or what to thank for them all. 

           Although Bethany received no answer for her prayers, she didn’t have nightmares that night.  She had no dreams at all.  She wondered maybe if it was an omen of a sort, that now that the worst of it all was over she would be if not better than at least not worse.  She couldn’t bring herself to feel optimistic at all, or to even smile anymore.  Today was the day she’d be hauled off to the Circle tower, and there was no avoiding it anymore.  A part of her had always wondered what life would be like amongst her peers, watched over by the templars.  A part of her despised that other part for thinking it, since it almost felt like a betrayal of everything her family had done for her.  The largest part of all didn’t care one way or the other since it was happening, and there was no avoiding, no hiding, nothing.  She didn’t know when she’d become so fatalistic and she didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything that could be done.

            Everything that was said sounded like a goodbye.  She’d put off the goodbyes and the tears until the second she left.  She wished she hadn’t, it might have been easier, but she never claimed to have the best judgment. 

            Sean had threatened to tear the templars in two.  Chomper had growled right along with him.  She knew in her heart that he meant it – he would probably rip them in half with his bare hands, except she told him quite seriously that it wouldn’t help.  She’d never seen him look so lost before.  So unsure of what to do – her eldest brother always knew what to do in every situation.  It’s part of what made Sean, Sean.  He had a quip and a pithy retort for everything.  He didn’t have one for this.  He also wouldn’t let go of her.  Bethany was certain she was losing circulation throughout her body because he was holding on too tightly and wouldn’t let go.  She didn’t mind.

            Mother was still crying.  Everyone was crying a bit.  Bethany had always envied her mother a bit because she looked elegant and couth no matter what she did; she even looked pretty when she cried.  Grief was never a pretty thing, however, and if Sean hadn’t already cut off her circulation than her mother did it for him.  When she finally calmed down for a bit, Leandra latched a gift around Bethany’s neck, which she made her daughter promise to treasure – a golden locket with a faded engraving on the front.  Mother had said that it had once displayed the Amell crest, and within the locket was all she held dear – images of her family, her life, her legacy, her most precious treasures.  Bethany cried again.

            Father was the hardest.  He’d fought the hardest against it.

            Bethany had finally told him ‘no.’  She thought that he had to understand on some level how she felt about it all.  Mostly numb, mostly terrified.  Her father wouldn’t let go.  She’d listened to him rage and curse against it, making promises he wouldn’t keep, saying things that shouldn’t be said.  If Sean would’ve ripped the templars in half with his hands, Dad would’ve trapped them in a spirit prison and then set them on fire, and then he’d rip the remains apart.  Then he’d reanimate them and do it all over again.  She wanted to smile at that but couldn’t.  She was out of tears and smiles. 

            In the end, he had the same look on his face that she did.  In the end, he understood.  There was no choice, nothing more to be done or said.  This was it.  Father knew.  He told her quietly, he whispered, “you’ll be with your peers.  You’ll be able to study in the open for the first time.  You’ll… make me proud, sweetheart.”

            “A foot in the door,” she whispered back.  Her eyes stung.  She thought she’d run out of tears but they poured down against logic.  There were too many things and she couldn’t say then.  There was no time.  “Isn’t it, Daddy?”

            He nodded and held her close.  She couldn’t see his face but could hear tears threaten in his choked voice.  “Baby steps, darling.  One step at a time.  Takes time to make it all better, but it _will_ be.”

            She squeezed tighter, finding herself unwilling and physically unable to let go.  “Swear?”

            “I swear, if you shall swear to let your gift only ever serve what is best in you and not that which is most base,” he told her, the words rumbling with the resonating promise of his voice. 

            “You’re the best of me,” she mumbled back.  Father had said that many times before, and not just to her – it was almost like his catchphrase.  She started crying in earnest then.  It was awhile before she said the three words and was able to let go.

            And then there was Carver.

            There weren’t really any words.  They’d always been able to read each other’s minds as twins.  They understood each other.  He understood what she was doing, better than anyone else in the room.  Better than Mother and Father, better than Sean and his dog.  Carver knew.  

            They stared at each other wordlessly, sharing wordless conversations.  I’m scared, she told him silently with her eyes.  Maker, I’ve never been so scared.  I don’t know what to do, Carver.

            I know.  I am too.  I don’t know.  It’s not fucking fair.

            It isn’t.  None of it is.  I don’t know that it ever will be…

            Don’t let them know you’re scared, he warned silently.  Don’t let them see that part of you.  They’ll take it and use it to break you in half.  I don’t want them to see you cry.

            I won’t, I promise.  I won’t ever cry.

            Nothing will ever be the same.  Not for you or me or any of us.  Not ever, sister.

            No.

            And for one brief moment, even the silent conversation between them was silenced.  There wasn’t anything left to say, there wasn’t anything left to be understood.  Bethany went to her twin an embraced him without another word.  The numbness was gone, replaced by something raw and simple and bitter and broken.  Nothing left to be said but one thing, “I love you, Carver.”

            He only held on for a moment longer.  It was time for her to go.  “I love you too, sis,” he whispered back and that was all.

            The sick feeling in her stomach was mostly gone by the time Bethany left in the company of the templars.  Sers Bryant, Antoine, Kiernan and Maron were playing the part of her captors, taking her into custody and towards the Great Mage Prison. The dawn was breaking, the sun stretching feathery tendrils of light pink across the eastern sky.  She was tired, exhausted, and afraid.  It was too early for her to get around to mustering up something to hope about; maybe tomorrow she’d try again.  For now, the Circle and all of its mysterious doom awaited her.

* * *

 

 

            The journey to the Tower was about three days with the five of them.  Bethany had to wonder briefly what about her seemed to dangerous that four templars were needed to take her back in one piece to the Tower, but decided it was best not to question it.  She was lucky they weren’t executing her (or maybe they were taking her out in the middle of nowhere to do the deed and just hadn’t told her or her family out of some sick sense of sympathy; she was shocked to find that she didn’t mind that possibility).  She was an apostate had been living in these templars’ home village for over a year; she knew their friends and family members, and was on very thin ice because of it.  Mages in glass houses shouldn’t throw fireballs, as her father might say.

            Thinking about her father and her family brought back an all-too-soon-and-all-too-familiar pang, so she distracted herself by looking at the plants.  They were on the road and all manner of weed and random flowers were strewn about.  She categorized and counted them, and when she was bored of that, she fantasized about braiding them between her fingers since she couldn’t actually walk over and pick them or do anything remotely interesting with her hands. 

           She wasn’t allowed to do anything with her hands.  One of the rules.  Ser Bryant had made it quite clear that if she so much as looked like she was about to cast a spell, they would be obligated to bind her hands.  And if she did decide to cast anything, they wouldn’t hesitate to smite her in punishment.  She nodded and played obedient.  No need to antagonize them.  What’s done is done.

           Bethany got the impression that the other templars, not Ser Bryant, were surprised by her.  Probably because she was being obedient and complacent.  She just didn’t see how causing trouble could really benefit anybody and she wasn’t a trouble-maker at heart anyway.  Ser Kiernan had even remarked that this had been the easiest apostate they’d ever captured and she’d winced at that.  One pointed look from Ser Bryant had shut Ser Kiernan up.

           She’d asked the Knight-Commander briefly what the Tower was like.  He hadn’t been very specific.  So far, all she knew was that it was big, probably scary, and full of mages and templars alike.  She found it a bit odd, that the templars lived in the Tower with the mages, although in retrospect she wasn’t sure why she thought that was odd.  Where else would they live?  The Tower was on an island in the middle of a lake.  It’s not as if the templars had any place to go.  She wondered if some of them felt just as trapped there as the mages, but somehow doubted it.  Being a templar wasn’t a stigma outside of the Tower, while being a mage was. 

           Bethany didn’t talk at all the second day since she found herself in a justifiably untalkative mood.  She spent most of the day staring blankly into the distance unthinkingly.  Every time she thought about anything, it brought her back to her family, and she didn’t want to think about that.  Being mindless was easier.  But, like the Circle, she just couldn’t find a way to avoid it.

           “Do you suppose…” she said aloud.  The templar nearest to her, Ser Maron, quirked an eyebrow at her.  She frowned.  “Will I be able to send letters?  From the Tower.  To my family, I mean.”

           The templar considered this.  “After you are out of observation, I suppose so, yes.  But I wouldn’t be the one to ask.”

           She didn’t really have anything to add to that, so she nodded and kept walking.

 _What’s ‘observation?’  What are they going to do with me?_   Her father hadn’t said anything about… she sighed at the thought of her father.  Whatever observation was, she hoped it wasn’t serious.  Maybe they would just sit around and watch her.  Maybe they would interrogate her.  Maybe they’d torture her.  Although from what she’d heard about templars in the Circle from her father, they weren’t the kind.  Abuse of mages was frowned upon in the Order… not that it didn’t happen.  She’d had too many nightmares of the like to rule the possibility out, terrifying as it was. 

           Bethany tried to focus on something else.  She fiddled with the locket at her neck protected beneath her kerchief.  Her mother had shoved it into her hands that dreadful morning.  It was old, older than she was, and had the remnants of swirling engravings on the pendant that had been eroded from years of nervous fiddling.  She’d seen her mother absently rub it from time to time, not really as a nervous tick but out of habit, like tapping a foot or biting a fingernail.

           She spent the third day walking on the Imperial Road in silence as well.  There was very little to say to her templar captors.  They didn’t ask questions, just made demands.  She considered Ser Bryant the nicest of the bunch since he at least had answered some of her initial questions about the Circle Tower but ultimately Bethany thought it was for the best to just stay quiet and cooperate from a distance.  She didn’t want trouble.  She also didn’t want to be dragged off to the Circle, but she had to go one for two and it was already done.

           Bethany hadn’t actually ever seen Lake Calenhad.  Most of the time her family spent moving around had been around the Bannorn or in South Reach.  There was a higher concentration of templars towards the north and east and her family made a conscious decision to stay as far away from the Tower as possible.  No need to go out of their way to make themselves noticeable.  She regretted it a bit, that she had never seen the Lake before – it was rather magnificent.  Given the very gradual pace she and the Lothering templars were at, it was no surprise that they arrived at the docks of Lake Calenhad on the evening of the third day.  The sun was just beginning to touch the edge of the Lake, changing it from a glacial blue to an orange flame.  The Tower was dark and solemn, a black obelisk that pierced the purple and red sky.  Bethany had read somewhere that the Tower was ancient and Tevinter and wondered what its old Tevinter name was.  All Tevinter ruins had funny names.  Ostagar, Aeonar…

           Bethany’d been distracted, staring at the Tower and Ser Antoine prodded her in the back.  She started out of her reverie and trudged forward.  Her captors formed around her on each side, one behind, one in front and two on either side.  Ser Bryant in front of her was quite tall and extra imposing in his armor so she didn’t get much of a chance to see any details.  She wasn’t necessarily short, more like average, but had to inwardly curse her fate for being the shortest one in the family.

           Little to no words were exchanged beyond Ser Bryant or Ser Kiernan ordering her forward and into the ferry that would take her across her lake and towards her prison.  She sighed and stared glumly at the small boat before dutifully stepping on. 

           The Tower filled her vision and eclipsed everything else.  It was larger than she’d expected, although she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting and only got bigger and bigger the closer the ferry took them.  The gentle lapping of the water at the edge of the boat was soothing and she focused on that. 

           She hadn’t been allowed to sit at the edge of the boat and so was stuck between Antoine and Kiernan, wondering briefly aloud how exactly it was possibly that four heavily armed templars, a girl, and a ferryman all fitted onto the boat.

           The ferryman spoke up and answered her, much to her surprise.  “Oh, Lissie’s stronger than she looks, she is.  She’s carried far worse.  Had to take seven templars and three mages not too long ago across Calenhad here – wasn’t sure how that would work out but I needn’t have worried.  Greagoir said he’d pay for damages besides,” he added with a chuckle.

           She stared at the ferryman briefly, feeling a bit nostalgic for home and not really knowing why.  “Who is Greagoir?”  She asked quietly.

           The ferryman hummed some unnamable tune under his breath as he rowed.  “Knight-Commander of the templars at the Tower, of course.  Good man.”  He glanced over at her, and then apparently something about her bothered him so he looked away.  Bethany sighed lightly.  Yes.  She was an apostate.  Evil, evil, evil.  Nothing she hadn’t heard before.  Not that it didn’t sting whenever people gave her that look.

           “Pardon, what’s your name, ser?”  She asked, deciding to take advantage of what little conversation she could before Ser Kiernan or one of the templars interrupted her.  She suspected that she would find very little ‘normal’ conversation at the Tower anyway and may as well enjoy it while it lasted.

           The ferryman laughed at her formality.  “Oh, don’t need to be callin’ me that, lass, I’m no ser.  Kester’s the name.”

           “Kester.”  She thought about introducing herself but decided there would be little point.  She was just one apostate, one mage filing into the Circle like the others and in all honesty she doubted she would ever see Kester again.  “Why is your boat named Lissie?”  She asked instead.

           “Named after me grandmum,” Kester answered wistfully.  “Was my father’s boat before mine.  Not sure why he named it after grandmum – shrew of a woman, she was, from what I hear.  Constantly yelling and gibbering about this and that, always getting mad over silly things.  Course, I suppose family’s allowed to yell at each other now and then, ‘specially my grandmum.  Must say, though, hah, this boat’s much better company than she was!”

           Bethany smiled faintly at that.  If she ever got a boat, she was going to name it Sean.

* * *

 

 

           It was an odd feeling that she could probably never accurately describe to anyone, first stepping into the Tower and hearing the huge boom of the impenetrable doors behind her.  She was naturally terrified; more terrified than she’d ever been in her life.  It was a state of being she’d become familiar with over the past few days, complete and abject terror; she’d spent the last few days surrounded by templars, the things she feared most, and her inherent fear of templars only made her entry into the Tower worse.

           They were _everywhere_.  She could feel their probing eyes, and all of their eyes were on her – or at least she thought they were, considering the helmets.  She glanced back and forth nervously between the two templars guarding the Tower’s main entrance, caught between terror and fascination.  These templars looked a bit different.  She wasn’t sure why she thought that but eventually decided that staring at her captors wasn’t going to endear her to them (not that she wanted to be endeared anyway) so she stared pointedly at the floor, counting backwards from ten over and over again until her hands stopped shaking.

           There had been no ritual here, no templar-memorizing.  She knew that there was no point in it, since she had no desire to memorize the faces and names of her guards.  If Bethany was in prison, there was no point in hiding from the wardens.  All the faces and the figures blended together into a nightmarish blur.  She began to shake again against her will, and focused firmly on everything that wasn’t her feelings.

           Everything was cold, hard stone, from the floors to the parapets.  There was a statue of Andraste in front of Bethany but she refused to look it in the eye – besides, Andraste’s eyes were always cast towards the heavens, away from her fellow man as she had eyes only for her Maker, which was something Bethany had always found a little ironic.  Around her was Tevinter architecture, a few small statues here and there, columns and the like.  She would have been fascinated if she hadn’t been in a state of utter shock.

           For the last week she had no idea what she was going to do with herself.  She’d never truly been alone before in her entire life.  Her brothers were always around, always with her, always there to protect her.  She had to wonder if she’d brought this on herself even though she couldn’t find anything wrong in her actions no matter how many times she ran it over and over in her head.  She had saved a little boy.  With magic, yes?  That wasn’t a crime.   _It_ shouldn’t _be a crime._

           The templars apparently thought otherwise.  Little boys only got to be saved by people who weren’t cursed with magic.  She felt very, very bitter and very, very hollow and very, very lonely.

           She nearly reprimanded herself at the feeling – lonely was a bit of a selfish feeling, wasn’t it?  And besides, she had her mother’s locket.  She wasn’t alone.  She was away from the only people in the world that loved and cared for her and that she loved and cared for in return but the distance…the distance…

           Bethany couldn’t lie to herself anymore.  She felt like dying but it wasn’t an option.  She wanted to break down and cry but the part of her that was pure Carver refused to submit.  Refused to show any more weakness in front of the templars.  Yes, that was it.  Bethany found that little spark amidst her hopelessness and clung to it.  Maybe it would carry her through the Tower because she was too weak, too… too…

           She hadn’t realized someone had been addressing her until her arm was prodded by Ser Antoine.  She’d been staring at the ground very determinedly, absolutely not thinking about anything that would make her cry (it wasn’t successful, her eyes stung).  She looked up at Ser Bryant, forgetting all about the little spark she’d discovered in the last minute and falling into hopelessness again.  There was nothing but the Tower.  Her worst nightmare. 

           He must’ve caught something in her gaze because he looked pointedly away and towards a templar she didn’t recognize.  He looked old and grizzled and his eyes were shadowed.  The other templars in the room all had their queer helmets on but he did not, and his fancier armor denoted that he was a templar in charge.  Knight-Commander, maybe.  What had Kester said about the Knight-Commander?  Something, she was sure.  Bethany wondered absently who the older templar was.  And then realized she had run out of damns to give.

           She unconsciously reached for the old locket at her neck, but at the last second remembered that she was to do nothing with her hands under pain of binding and/or death and slapped her hands back to her sides.  She sighed instead and stared back at the ground, fighting back the stinging behind her eyes.

           Bethany hadn’t heard a word of what was spoken since entering the Tower.  She was reasonably certain that she probably should have made an effort to overhear since it did concern her fate, but ultimately decided that there wasn’t a point.  She absolutely did not have a say in the matter.

           “And of the family,” the grizzled templar said suddenly.  This, she overheard, and her heart raced at.  No, not her family.  _Don’t mention them, Ser Bryant, please…I beg you…_   she fought the urge to bury her face in her hands and cry some more and balled her hands into fists at her side, breathing in and out in shuddering breaths as slowly as she could manage.

           “The circumstances are unique,” Ser Bryant was saying quietly.  Bethany shot a glance at him, then back to the floor when her eyes started stinging again.  _No, I’m not going to cry.  No.  Bloody well_ no!  “Her family has been living in Lothering for a great deal of time,” Knight-Commander Bryant continued, “and considering their invaluable contributions to the community and its economy, as well as the relative harmlessness and peaceful complacency that this apostate has demonstrated to us so far, I have determined that the family is not to suffer reprisal.”

           “It is your jurisdiction,” the other Knight-Commander said, the grizzled one, rather dubiously, “however, for harboring an apostate, even under these circumstances I would not allow it.”

           Ser Bryant inclined his head respectfully.  “As you said, Greagoir, it is not your decision, but mine.”  He looked to Bethany, who was staring up at him with undisguised gratitude.  It was unexpected under the circumstances that Bethany would feel anything but resentment or outright hate towards her captors, but Ser Bryant had been kind to her, under the circumstances.  Hadn’t he?  And her family… at least they would be… would be… she looked back at the floor.

_No, Bethany, no crying, damn you.  Not now._

           “Very well,” Knight-Commander Greagoir said officially and waved his gauntleted left hand.  Bethany tensed at the sound of armored clanking footsteps echoed against the stone.  The templars that had accompanied her from Lothering retreated from her suddenly and she stared around in bewilderment as two new ones pressed at her sides and urged her forward.  She stumbled over the stone floor until she was standing behind Knight-Commander Greagoir, unsure of what to do.  Was she supposed to know what she was going to do?  Was there some kind of captured apostate etiquette she wasn’t aware of?  And what if… she breathed deeply and counted back from ten, staring at Ser Bryant and trying to communicate with her eyes her gratitude.  She wasn’t sure if he got the message but it was something to hope for.

           The grand doors at the entrance to the Circle of Magi’s Tower opened and the four templars from Lothering left, probably never to return.  Knight-Commander Greagoir stood very still for a few seconds before glancing at Bethany.  She stared up at him, inwardly angry at herself for not being defiant by nature and instead looking like a frightened animal.  She was sure that was how she looked.  It is, after all, how she felt.

           “Apostate,” Greagoir enunciated officiously, his sonorous deep voice echoing around the central room they were in.  “You have been brought by the templars to the Circle of Magi where you will begin your proper study as a mage amongst your peers.  Here you will be taught the proper use of magic, and the punishment for its improper use.  ‘Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him,’” he recited.  “So Andraste spoke as she cast down the wicked Tevinter Imperium, and so we hold her words true to this day.  We Templars watch and protect to ensure the safety of the most.”  He paused to stare at her and she nodded quickly and nervously to assure him that she was listening.  She didn’t have a choice in the matter, after all. 

           “Know this,” he continued, “because of your illegal residence outside of this Tower you will not be allowed with the other apprentices unsupervised and will only be allowed amongst them at all during your studies – which will begin tomorrow afternoon – and during mealtime.  You will be placed under observation by we templars in separate quarters for an undetermined length of time, until I am satisfied that in no way has your residence outside this Tower made you as a danger to those around you.  Do you understand?”

           Bethany Hawke nodded, quickly, nervously.  _Tomorrow?  So fast…_

           Greagoir shifted slightly, armor clanking.  “From this point forward, then, you are an apprentice of the Circle of Magi of Ferelden.  Welcome to Kinloch Hold.”

           And now she was in her new home.  But there were no plausible circumstances that Bethany would have ever arrived at the wretched Tower and called it ‘home.’  It was a mockery of home, a place of unfeeling stone and solemn statues and creepy stalker templars.  It was everything that home would never be, and Bethany knew at heart that no matter if she ended up spending the rest of her life in the Tower, that was how she would always feel, like an unwelcome stranger.  It stung more than the tears that threatened her eyes.  _You’re not going to bloody cry_ , she imagined Carver would say to her.  _Not now, not in front of them.  Don’t give them the satisfaction._

* * *

 

 

           She had been placed firmly in an uncomfortable chair in the Knight-Commander’s office – there were three templars in the room including the Knight-Commander and two unfamiliar helmeted templars that she did not care to find the names of.  Time seemed to slow down in that modest room as she endured the templar’s watchful gazes.  She was sure that she was to be interrogated, but wasn’t sure when it would begin.

           “You are Bethany Hawke,” Greagoir suddenly said. 

           Bethany started at this.  She had worked it out in her head, her name and the dangers of it.  It was possible the name Hawke could be linked to her father and since Ser Bryant had made no mention of him, she wanted to keep as low a profile as possible.  “N-no, it’s not… Amell.”

           The Knight-Commander’s gaze narrowed.  “Pardon?”

           She flinched involuntarily.  “M-my name is… is Amell.”  She caught herself fiddling with her hands but since she hadn’t been told yet whether or not she could use them without being bound she slapped them back down on her lap and breathed deeply.  “Hawke is… a more c-common last name.  M-my family adopted it… less s-s-suspicious than…”  She looked up and gulped.  “Amell is a noble family in Kirkwall, never been there myself but mum said I was born there, an’ we didn’t want to be associated with, I mean, w-w-with them, if someone, you know, knew about the family, and… it’s Bethany Amell.  Not Hawke.  That’s my real name.”  Amell was her mother’s maiden name and it was indeed a noble line, from what Bethany knew.  Since her mother had spoken very rarely of her family, Bethany only knew that they were noble and nothing more; it was a plausible enough story, she thought, and would avoid the potential association with her father’s name.  Ser Bryant may have prevented reprisals against her family, but Bethany was still going to try everything she could to protect them from her magic, even locked up in a Tower.

           The Knight-Commander stared at her and she looked very pointedly at his desk, afraid of meeting his eyes.  After a few tense seconds the elder templar grunted.  “Very well, then, Bethany Amell.  You are sixteen years of age.”

           “Yes,” she uttered quietly.

           Greagoir’s nostrils flared as he breathed in deeply and paused.  “I will ask this only once, since it was not included in Ser Bryant’s _extensive_ report, but is yet out of my jurisdiction.  Where did you learn your magic?”

           “Uh…w-what?”

           “You have hidden your gift for many years from the public.  No known incidents of accidental magic or outbursts of any kind.  This is a feat and requires more than passing skill.”  He stared her down in an almost outright hostile manner and she flinched again.  “Skill I would be a fool to believe you acquired on your own, at your age.  Where did you learn your magic?  From whom?”

           She’d anticipated that they’d ask this of her if they didn’t already know about her father but unlike the issue of her name she hadn’t been able to come up with a good story.  She thought fast, and finally blurted, “books.”

           Greagoir stared at her, gaze narrowing further.  “You expect me to believe that?  Tell me, are you the only mage in your family?  Or are there others?”

           She bit her tongue – the part of her that was inspired by her brothers wanted to say something snarky but she knew much better.  “I don’t expect anything, ser,” she told him calmly.  “From _Fortikum Kadab_ to _The Nature of Mana_ , I found as many books as I could and learned from there.  I taught myself.  There are no other mages in my family, ser.  I’m the only one.  They only kept me hidden because they didn’t want to lose their daughter to the Circle.  It’s not a crime, loving someone enough to protect them like that for sixteen years, and I think I’ve been a pretty good sport about all of this so far, so excuse me for getting a little defensive.  Ser.”  She couldn’t help the trembling in her voice but was rather proud that had managed that explanatory defense on the spot.  She felt a tiny swell of pride at herself.

           Greagoir obviously didn’t buy it but she didn’t expect him to.  She breathed a bit easier when he didn’t press any more, though.  He said he would only ask once and he kept to that. 

           Two hours later after Greagoir wrote down some things on papers – _Are those my records?  Is he writing them?_ – she was escorted out of the office and back towards the entrance.  The walls were vaguely circular and it was almost dizzying, looking up at the ceiling and following the clanking templars.  She knew what her mother would say.  It was too high up, Leandra Hawke would say, for any decently run place.  Bethany wondered if anyone had ever been to the top of the ceiling.  How did they get the dust up there?  With magic, maybe?  No spell she knew of would help in the cleaning. 

           She opened her mouth to ask out loud but then remembered that the question was a) stupid and b) she was surrounded by armored lunatics.  One of them without the stereotypical monkey-helmet didn’t look quite so grim but she wasn’t sure she wanted to test it.  He looked much younger than the others.  Apprehensive, maybe.  She didn’t know.  He seemed to sense her gaze and glanced over at her curiously.  She looked pointedly at the ground again.  _Bad Bethany.  The templars do enough staring for the lot of us mages._

           They eventually told her that she was going to have a ‘phylactery’ taken from her.  She had never heard of such a thing and was shocked that she hadn’t.  Something else her father hadn’t mentioned?  Knight-Commander Greagoir claimed that a mage’s phylactery was its ‘essence’ and that it was how the templars could track escaped mages.  She bit her lip when she found herself nearly asking how such a thing was possible or if she could just skip the phylactery and get to the lessons.  Whatever it was, it didn’t sound pleasant.

           “OW!”

           It wasn’t pleasant.

           She was pricked with a needle the size of a claymore and forced to bleed into a vial.  A lot.  And she could do nothing but stare.  She gazed around in bewilderment at the templars around her who were letting it happen – one was holding her arm quite firmly over the small vial and the others were just staring, as if this happened every day.

           The blood collected in the cylindrical vial and eventually was stoppered shut.  One of the templars gave it to the Knight-Commander and she stared as she watched him walk off with it out of the room and in the opposite direction of which they’d come.  She had absolutely no idea what had just happened.

           “Um,” she said aloud and then looked at her arm that one templar was holding in a vice grip.  It was bleeding profusely on the floor.  She stared at her throbbing wound, unable to look away.

           The one without the helmet came over and eventually bandaged and even apologized to her when he tied it too tight.  This surprised her – not that he apologized, it was just common courtesy, although it _was_ mildly surprising under the circumstances – but that the templar had spoken to her at all.  None of the others had bothered, except for the Knight-Commander.  She nodded, unsure of what to say.  Were there even rules, about templar-mage interactions?  She didn’t know of any, though Bethany supposed it’d be a bit silly to expect that the templars of the tower would be on speaking terms with the mage inhabitants.  _They’re our jailers._

           Eventually after the little blood-fest she was dragged off to yet another location, this one impossibly more gloomy than the last.  She was handed some brightly colored clothing and escorted by two templars, the nice one she didn’t know the name of and some other one that likewise wasn’t wearing his helmet, to some room where she was told she would be staying until she was out of ‘observation.’  She bit her tongue to prevent her from asking when in hell that would be.

           There was a bit of a dilemma first, though.  The door was closed and not opened for her. Bethany stared at the knob, unsure of what to do.

           “Um.”  She reached slowly for the knob, catching the glimpse of the nice light-haired templar out of the corner of her eye.  She drew her hand back immediately and bit her lip, staring at it frustration.  _Now what?_

           “What is it?”  Came an unfamiliar voice from her left.  She nearly jumped out of her boots and whirled around with a yip.  It was the other templar, this one with dark hair. 

           “I, uh, the door,” she stated dumbly and looked back at the unopened door.

           The templar eyed her carefully, as if judging her sanity.  “Yes.  That’s a door.”

           “I-I-I just, huh,” she glanced back at the door and reached for it, flinching. 

           “What’s the problem?”  The templar demanded angrily.

           She flinched a bit involuntarily.  “Iwasn’ttoldifIcouldusemyhandsyet,” she blurted all at once.

           The two templars stared at her and she fidgeted under their twin glances.  Suddenly, the one on the right, the nice one, started laughing.  It was Bethany’s turn to look at him if he was crazy.  “W-what?”  The nice one guffawed. 

           “It’s not funny,” she muttered under her breath.  “I just… may I use my hands now, please?”  Bethany asked as politely as she could manage under the circumstances.

           “Of course you can use your hands,” the other dark-haired templar chortled.  “Why in the world would you need permission for that?  That’s—absurd!  Ha-ha-ha!”

           Bethany gritted her teeth and opened the door, silently cursing templars and all their insipid, incomprehensible rules.  _No one ever tells me anything,_ she thought bitterly.

* * *

 

 

 

            Bethany Hawke liked bright colors but even _she_ thought the standard mage robes were too bright.  She wasn’t allowed a mirror, but she felt ridiculous, and that was enough.  Her dignity couldn’t take much more of this.  She said a silent prayer to Andraste and sat down calmly on the provided bed, counting the minutes as they went by.

            Any minute now, she was certain something was going to happen.  She’d only been in the room for an hour.  Bethany had been told to change into her new wardrobe and wait until the templars came to her for further instruction.  She wasn’t certain that there was anything left for her to do.  Maybe they were going to put her in chains?  She’d asked the dark-haired templar at the door if that was going to happen and he’d given her a weird look, made an indignant noise and ignored her for the rest of the evening.  She worried about what that meant, since that neither answered nor really dismissed her inquiry. 

            Bored, Bethany began to tap her bare feet on the stone and hum to herself.  The shoes that had been provided for her were too small, which was odd because she had small feet to begin with.  She sighed mournfully.  _I miss my old clothes._

            She’d been trying her hardest not to think about Lothering or her family but her mind didn’t listen and all this alone time was doing wonders for her attention span.  She couldn’t _help_ but think of her family since it was the only thing _to_ think about, after being cooped up in the small stone room for so long.  There wasn’t even any windows in the room.  Well, there was one window, but it was far too high up to see anything out of, in addition to being barred.

            What would her father say, she wondered?  What would Malcolm Hawke do?  Would he try to escape through that small window?  Would he make a witty remark, flippantly dismissing all the events?  Would he fight this?  Would he just endure his fate?  Bethany had never quite thought of herself as a passive person, she just didn’t like conflict.  Nor had she ever experienced shame at the thought of being passive, so this was a new experience for her.  She couldn’t quell the anger she felt at herself for accepting this.

            But what could she do?  What could be done?  Struggling wouldn’t serve anyone.  This place, this prison, was all she had now.  It was the beginning and the end for Bethany, the inevitability of everything made real.  She was a mage.  She belonged with other mages.  Didn’t she?  A small part of her had always thought that, had always wondered if it would be so terrible to follow Andraste’s command and be a part of the Circle… but if that was so, what was this anger all about? 

            Bethany sighed.  She wasn’t in the mood for soul-searching today.  “I wish there was someone to talk to,” she murmured into the empty room.  She sighed again when she realized what she was doing.  “Didn’t Sean say that talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity?”  Alas, she was bored, and it’s common knowledge that boredom drives men (and teenagers) to do some strange things.

           “…Well, what do you have to say about that now, Bethany?  Well, I quite agree, I think we’re going mad, yessir.  Oh dear, whatever shall we do!  We’ll just have to sort it out with a quick game of… uhh… Eye Spy!  Yes, that’s what we’re gonna do.  Except that’s no fun when both the players are yourself.  Why do you say that?  Well, there’s just no mystery to it!  You have to add a little mystery to have a good game of Eye Spy and I’d know what the object was since I’m in your mind, Bethany.  Well, Self, what do you suggest?  How about a good game a mental chess?  Self, I think that’s a brilliant idea!  If we can keep track of all the pieces, that is.  Oh dear, that would be difficult, wouldn’t it?  What’s a less difficult game, Bethany?  Oh, I don’t know, Self, how about we sing a song or two?  Say, that’s a good idea, Bethany.  Of course it is, _I_ came up with it—uh oh, I’m turning into Sean,” she suddenly cut off, scratching her head.  She absently wished she had a hairbrush, and began to pull out strands of hair for braiding.

           Sighing, she hummed a tune to herself and reached for her mother’s locket to fiddle wi—

           “No!”  she gasped.  The locket was missing. 

           “Oh, no, no, no, _noo!_   Where’d it go?  Oh Maker, I’m a horrible daughter, mother I’m so sorry – I must’ve… it must’ve… no…”  She leapt off the cot and dropped to her knees, trying to control the cursing (Bethany found the further away she was from her brothers, the more she started to channel them, and it wasn’t a good thing).  In a cold dead panic, she crawled and felt every inch of the floor, looking everywhere.  She wondered briefly if the locket might’ve fallen off in the hallway, or maybe it had accidentally come off when she’d changed her clothes, but her clothes were gone, thrown away after she’d taken them off and dressed in her new robes.  That could mean either the locket was lost somewhere in the halls of the Tower, or that it had been taken away by the templars to Maker knew where, and deciding that she didn’t like either of those options she chose to ignore them and keep looking.

           She searched and searched but it was useless – the locket, the only thing she had left of home, was gone – and now completely at a loss, Bethany did the only thing she could do.  She plopped down on the cold stone, buried her face in her arms and cried.

           A detached portion of Bethany that lurked in the back of her mind found it odd that the two hardest times she’d ever cried in her life had happened within less than a week of each other, and wondered at this rate, what else was going to happen, what else she could cry about next time, and if she’d have any tears left at all.

* * *

 

 

 

           The nice templar was looking at her strangely.  Bethany did her best to ignore him but it was starting to really bother her.  She glanced at him a couple of times and finally got fed up with it.  “What?”  She demanded.

           He looked startled.  “Oh—sorry.  I, uh, didn’t mean to stare.  It’s just... sorry, nevermind.”

           Bethany was confused, but she was too upset from earlier after discovering that her mother’s locket was missing to care much.  She wiped angrily at her eyes, which she knew were red from all the crying, and sniffled a bit.  “Okay.  It’s okay.  I’m sorry for snapping, that was rude of me.”

           She was being escorted by the light-haired templar from earlier through the halls of the Circle Tower, towards the fourth floor, they told her, which held the mess hall.  It was good, because Bethany was starving, but bad because she wasn’t in the mood to eat.  She wasn’t in the mood to do anything.  She felt less like she was dying and more that she was already dead, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter, did she?  But if she was certain of one thing, it was that she wasn’t going to be a baby about this, and she was most certainly not going to cry in front of the blasted templars.  If Carver found out, he would never let her live it down, and that unspoken promise between her and her twin was the only thing keeping her together at that moment.

           “You look very upset, is all,” the templar interjected suddenly, bringing her train of thought to a screeching halt.

           She looked over at him, gazing at him for a long moment.  Figures she’d get stuck with the one chatty templar.  They weren’t supposed to socialize with mages, right?  She inwardly sighed – since when had she ever been this cynical?  _Maker, am I ever channeling my brothers today._ “I am upset,” she said quietly.  “I… I lost something important, m-my necklace, and… I really… I looked everywhere for it, I don’t know where I could’ve dropped it… and… it was all I have of home that yo—that they didn’t take away.” She bit her lip.  She didn’t want to say more.  It really was too private a thing.  She wiped away at her eyes when tears threatened to come over.  _No, no tears, Bethany, this is no time to be silly._

           “I’m sorry,” he apologized impulsively.

           Bethany was surprised, but a bit grateful that there was at least one templar in the Circle here who wasn’t a totally scary mage-hating monster.  Or at the very least, this one was doing an excellent job of hiding his nature.  The gesture did not comfort her, though.  “Thank you,” she said awkwardly.

           He seemed a bit distracted and kept glancing off to the side, but Bethany either didn’t care or didn’t notice.  She figured that ultimately, it didn’t matter if he was being polite, because he was still a templar and she was still a mage.  Some gaps could not be bridged.  He certainly did try, though:  “I’m Cullen, by the way.”

           She sniffled again and wiped at her red eyes.  They were itchy now.  She didn’t want to think about what a mess she looked like.  “Cullen,” she repeated, nodding.  A name to a face.  She was good with names and faces.  “I’m Bethany.”

           “I know,” he said immediately, then apparently regretted it, “I mean, I knew that, you’re, I know your name.  Bethany Amell.  That’s a very pretty name.”

           “That’s what my father said when he named me,” she nodded, half-smiling ever so little, rubbing at the now-empty spot at her collarbone.  “According to my mother.”  She regretted bringing up the subject of her family instantly, and began to feel hollow.  She’d probably be the only mage in the tower who’d known a real family… A small part of her wondered if the feeling would ever cease and that wound would heal with time, and a bigger part of her doubted it.  However, it was a step.  A baby step in the right direction.  One foot at a time, one day at a time.  It would take time to make it all better, but it would be.  Maybe the feeling would never go away, and from the pointed way that Cullen was _not_ looking at her, Bethany could tell her face was an open book on that matter, but it was possible to get used to the feeling with time.  Maybe she’d grow numb – it was something to hope for.

 _I just wish it hadn’t cost me mother’s locket_ , she thought, clutching at the nape of her neck where the emptiness resided.

           At least there was something to take her mind off of the matter – Cullen was more than happy to talk her ear off, even if she wasn’t in a talkative mood exactly and still wasn’t sure if he was even _allowed_ to talk to her.  Still, he would know the rules about that, not her.  She rather liked listening to him prattle on about this and that and life at the Tower.  He reminded her wistfully a bit of her brother Sean, or rather a much more polite and genteel version of her elder brother.  And they didn’t look at all similar either.  And Sean was a fast-talking, rude, maniac with a gambling problem.  Come to think of it, the two could not be more dissimilar.  _Where did I get that idea from, anyway?_

           The following dinner also took Bethany’s mind off her hardships and she could say quite easily that it was the strangest dinner she’d ever had in her life.  It stole the record away from the dinner in Gwaren, before the templar incident, but after the incident with the “dog.” (See, Bethany had found a puppy on the side of the road one day that turned out to be a Desire demon in disguise – her father had easily slain it, immediately recognizing it for what it was, but the demon had some lingering effects, namely Bethany’s sudden but temporary short-term memory loss, a haunted set of cutlery, one zombified cat that used to be Sean’s named Mr. Wuffles – he was terrible at naming things – oh, and a floating bag of hats.  To say it had been a weird dinner that night was an understatement.  She didn’t remember most of it, due to the memory loss, and naturally having heard about the whole thing in intimate detail from her brothers the following morning, her first reaction had been, “that’s nice, but I’m really glad I don’t remember any of it.”)

           It wasn’t that anything specifically weird happened during that meal or that there were any haunted cutlery or floating hats, but the sheer awkwardness of the moment.  Bethany knew an awkward situation when she saw one – she felt somewhat awkward in most social situations herself, as she was not an extraordinarily social person due to her isolation from others, but for some odd reason she wasn’t quite feeling it.  The tension in the room was certainly palpable but instead of shrinking down like a mouse and crying a bit more about her lost locket, she felt more like laughing than anything else.

           It was a startling feeling for her, but soon enough she really had to try and control herself from just bursting out into laughter.

           The very instant she entered the main hall with the other apprentices, the instant she was led to a table and allowed to sit down with the others, the hall went silent.  Every single eye in the room was on the apostate.  She didn’t like the attention at first her face went redder than a tomato, naturally, but after a few seconds of enduring the unwavering attention, she somewhere along the line stopped feeling awkward and started finding the whole thing funny.

           There was nothing hilarious about it whatsoever.  It was actually a bit terrible, really.  She didn’t even know what the joke was, only that she wanted to laugh, harder than she’d ever laughed in her life.

           It was the weirdest meal she’d ever had.

           It was pretty bland too – not at all appetizing, but she supposed it could have been worse.  And maybe it was just because she hadn’t been hungry.  She hadn’t been hungry at all lately.

            By the time she was finished eating, she really couldn’t control herself any longer and felt herself begin to shake with silent giggles.  There was a rather good-looking elf sitting right next to her, staring at her with rapt attention.  She tried to look away but couldn’t, and caught his eye.  To her immense surprise, he grinned. 

            “You lose,” he said suddenly, and started laughing.  She blinked, unable to contain her surprise as all the blue-robed apprentices at the long wooden table she was at started chuckling.

            Soon, she wasn’t able to stop laughing either, even though she still didn’t know what the joke was.  She couldn’t express how much of a relief it was, although a bit strange, to finally have something to laugh about … even if the thing was nonsensical.  To finally let loose, if only for a few seconds, after the last few tension-filled, tragic days.  Even if Bethany was among strangers, it was good to finally laugh again.

            “What is it?”  She eventually got around to asking.

            The elf rolled his bright green eyes and blew a bit of his short dark blond hair out of his face.  “Well, we all know who you are, right?”  He began, his light tenor voice still shaking a bit from chuckling.  “I mean, _everyone_ knows who you are.  Second you walked into the room, boom, everyone, eyes on you.  So I figured it’d be funny to freak you out a little.  Managed to get everyone in the room to stare at you like a weirdo.  Wanted to see what you’d do, or how long it’d take you to crack.”

            Bethany frowned, but then smiled, but only ever so slightly.  “Rather mean of you, don’t you think?”  She said lightly.

            “Meh,” the elf shrugged, brushing off one of his sleeves.  “Probably, but it was pretty great, and I just won a lot of money because of you, so I owe you one.  What’s your name?”

            “You said everyone knew who I was,” she stated, looking down the table.  A few people still had their eyes on her but most were chatting away, idle conversation – the room was filled with noise, and it seemed right. 

            He rolled his eyes again, turning to face her more.  “Well, I mean, we all know you’re the apostate girl they caught but that’s it.  What’s your name?”

            “Bethany Amell.” 

            The elven mage stuck out his hand and smirked.  “Jordan Surana.  So how’d they nail ya?”  He asked eagerly.

            “Huh?”

            “Catch you, snag you, drag you by the hair like an Antivan whore – how’d the templars getcha?”

            “Oh.”  She nodded in comprehension.  “It’s not… well, it’s a very… boring story.”

            “You’re an apostate!”  He exclaimed loudly and for a brief moment everyone’s eyes were on her again.  It was only brief, however.  “Everything you are is exciting.  Don’t you know _anything_?”

            _Everything I am is… exciting?_ “No, should I?”

            “Yes, you totally should,” he cried.  “I mean, none of us have ever been outside the Tower, ‘cept for Anders.  Well, I mean, besides from when we were born, obviously, we weren’t there, but most of us were taken here too young to remember anything.  You’re different.  You were born outside and raised outside.  You know what it’s like out there.  You’ve seen the world – _we_ haven’t.”  He groaned, exasperated by the blank look on Bethany’s face.  “You don’t know anything, do you?”

            Bethany frowned at this, carefully folding her hands in her lap.  “I thought I did,” she said quietly, “but I suppose I don’t.”  And for the first time, she resented her father a bit, but only _ever so slightly,_ for not preparing her more for this eventuality.  She loved her father to tears, oh yes, and always would, but a nagging part of her mind insisted that he’d deliberately kept certain things from her.  Then again, it’s not as if Malcolm Hawke would ever have anticipated the Tower taking his child while he was alive, did he?

            She sighed.  “I’m probably a huge disappointment.”

            “Huh?” Jordan looked at her strangely.  “Whatever.  Look, Beth – can I call you Beth?”

            “Um, sure.”

            “So listen, Beth, I decided that I’m going to be your best friend here,” Jordan informed firmly.

            She looked up at him in a bewildered way and tucked her black hair behind her ears.  “When did you decide this?”

            The blond elf smiled and opened his mouth to talk, but another mage interrupted him – a dark haired human from across the table that Bethany hadn’t even noticed had been paying attention to their conversation.  “Only the very instant he heard of your existence,” the human mage said wryly.  “I’m Jowan, by the way.”

           “Jowan,” Bethany repeated seriously.  A name to a face.  Now she knew four people here.  It was progress, if nothing else.  She never would have envisioned in her life she’d be sitting amongst fellow mages, making friends, especially not in this dark situation.

           “Don’t listen to him, he’s full of crap,” Jordan said bluntly, and Jowan rolled his eyes and snorted.  “He thinks _he’s_ my best friend but what does he know?  Seriously, though, me, you, new best friend, braid each other’s hair, giggle about boys and all that stupid stuff.  Gonna be great.  And you’re gonna tell me everything about you, and I’ll tell you all kinds of secret shit about me,” he trailed on and on, “and I get the luxury of knowing by proxy what it’s like out there in Ferelden and you get the rare, awesome privilege of being the great and illustrious Jordan Surana’s bestest friend forever!”

           “It’s not as _illustrious_ as it sounds,” Jowan confided, leaning in across the table.

           Bethany looked between the two new faces, finding it a bit eerie how she was ending up mentally comparing everyone she met so far to her brothers.  She wondered absently when she was going to stop doing that.  Jordan did resemble Sean a bit, at least in mannerisms.  _Well, oh well, if I can’t beat them . . ._

           “I think your hair’s too short to braid,” she told Jordan with a straight face.

           “What?  Pfft.  Fine.  Spurn my offer why don’t cha.  You can braid Jowan’s for all I care.  See if I care, _new best friend_.”  He pointed at his face and mock-scowled.  “This is the face of me not caring.  Jowan, I have good news, you just got bumped back up to best bud status.  Beth’s being all mean now.”

           “Yippee,” Jowan said sarcastically, waving his arms in the air in a mock-cheer.

           “You’d _better_ be excited.  What you have is a privilege!  I’m in high demand.”

           Bethany smiled.  Jordan could say what she wanted, but he really was like Sean, in the respect of attitude not race, and he had a smile on his face despite.  _Maybe… life here… won’t be so terrible. Or at the least it won’t be boring, not with Jordan around._

* * *

 

            Templars, templars, templars.  It was the Tower so it was to be expected they’d be absolutely everywhere but it was more than irritating having to bump into one every single time she turned around.  At first it was terrifying due to her innate fear of them but after a while she became desensitized to their presence and only found them mildly irritating.  They only stopped being irritating when she remembered that they could rip the magic from her body with their minds; then they became scary once more.

            Much to her disgust, however, Bethany was starting to feel pity for them more than anything else.  She knew had no right to feel sorry and _shouldn’t_ feel sorry for the evil-helmeted stalkers who were responsible for everything that went wrong in mage-life one way or another, but after talking with templars like Cullen and being surrounded by them daily, looking at them the same way she did before the Tower happened to her was becoming impossible.  They were people, and they were doing their jobs, and that was all.  In fact, most of them hadn’t even wanted to be at the Tower.  Most of them didn’t have a choice in becoming a Templar.  At least, according to Cullen, who apparently was given to the Chantry at a young age, too young to know something else or who his parents were – and apparently was accepting of the idea of mage-hunting only because he knew it was inevitable, even if he didn’t join it.

            She was especially surprised to find a number of mage _sympathizers_ within the templar ranks.  They kept their sympathies hidden, yes, and they didn’t know that she knew about them, but you could tell them apart by watching them in their day to day.  Those few were the ones who went out of their way to hold doors open, to chat with the mages while they were on guard, and who helped Bethany reach the books at the top of the shelves in the library.

            Cullen, needless to say, was one of them.  Bethany was a bit angry at herself for starting to like the templar, just because he was nice and stopped to talk with her.  She was getting steadily more angry with herself for starting to think of the templar as a friend.  She went out of her way to pretend not to know who he was when she talked with other people just so she could ingrain it in her own mind that he wasn’t a friend, he was an armored templar who just happened to be close to her own age and _happened_ to be friendly, and that was all.  It didn’t help much, but it at least kept her distracted.

            Bethany sighed and buried her face in the book in front of her.  She heard the faint rhythmic clank of armored footsteps, knowing that the guard was being changed.  There were two guards in the library at the moment – one for her, and one for the other mages.  She was being guarded because she was under observation (which Bethany had later discovered meant only that she was to be isolated from other mages in all matters except for her studies and meals and was to be kept under strict watch by the templars for an indeterminate length of time while they assessed the threat that her life outside the Tower presented).  She hoped that the observation would end soon because she wasn’t fond of her cell, nor was the cot in any way comfortable, and she wasn’t too fond of the smell either. 

            She lifted her head briefly and tried to make out the jumbled old Tevinter words before her before realizing briefly that she’d selected the wrong book _again_ and groaned.

            Out of the corner of her eye and passed one of the stone arches of the library she spotted the old Senior Enchanter Sweeney, and she silently glared a bit at the old man.  He was the one responsible for the organization system of the library.  Naturally, Sweeney was the only one the organization made any sense to. 

            Bethany didn’t feel like getting back up and selecting the correct book so she pretended to read the one that was in front of her, all the while letting her mind wander.

            They hadn’t yet let her contact her family.  She’d asked every day about it and continued asking up until the point where she thought Knight-Commander Greagoir’s head was going to explode.  The old templar had finally referred her to the First Enchanter, once she was out from observation. 

            Bethany sighed again.

            When she was out of observation, Jordan had promised to throw a mini-party.  The templars wouldn’t be invited.  And there would be cake.

            It was something to look forward to, at least, and while she was under observation it gave her plenty of time to brainstorm exactly what she was going to say to her family in the first letter. 

            After several minutes Bethany finally gave up on the book and slammed it shut, startling younger apprentice at the end of the table.  She winced and mouthed and apology and shoved the book off to the side, and finally stared up at the cavernous stone ceiling.

            She hadn’t yet figured out how they cleaned the ceiling.  It was a mystery!

            She fingered the locket around her neck and smiled a bit dreamily.  It was good to have it back. 

           It turned out that she had indeed lost the precious memento, and spent a week in a panic-induced depression about it until none other than Cullen the templar showed up and meekly handed her the missing necklace.  She’d never been more grateful to a templar in her life.  Apparently he’d found it a short while ago and didn’t know who it had belonged to, that is until he recalled that she was throwing a fit about missing jewelry.  She bought that excuse and ate it up, simply grateful to have the one link to her old life back.  She’d even considered hugging the templar about it except that would have been extremely awkward, considering the fact that he was a _templar_ , who was _technically_ forbidden to socialize with mages,and also the armor. 

           Bethany also hadn’t wanted to give any fuel to the fire of Jordan’s gossip; he was convinced there was a forbidden love affair going on between her and the young blonde templar.  No matter how many times she insisted that he was full of it, it only seemed to encourage the elf, which was as endearing as it was frustrating.

            She caught a glimpse of her templar watcher in the corner of her eye.  Bethany couldn’t see his face but his stance screamed “boredom.”  At the end of her table a red-headed elf shifted in his seat, drawing her attention with a book that was comically bigger than his head.  He looked even younger than Bethany.  Old Sweeney was whistling a forgotten tune to himself and conducting an absentee (or invisible) chorus with his pen in the air.  The other templar guard’s brow furrowed and looked frustrated by the old man’s senility, and she smiled a bit to herself, finding a dull and calming comfort in the smooth surface of the locket she held.

_“A foot in the door, Isn’t it, Daddy?”_

_“Baby steps.  Take it one step at a time, Bethany.  It takes time to make it all better, but it will be.  That I promise you.”_

            Well, at least it was something to look forward to.

* * *

 

 

 

           It was twenty-nine days before the templars deemed Bethany Amell to not be a danger to those around her, and let her out of observation.  Twenty-nine days and seven hours after she had been forcibly taken from Lothering away from her family by the templars, Bethany Amell had written and sent the first letter to her family since her capture, and she was ecstatic. 

           The First Enchanter had been surprisingly - or maybe unsurprisingly - sympathetic to her story, but insisted that Bethany would have to come up with the money to send the letters herself.  Luckily, she was a pretty talented herbalist, if by ‘pretty talented’ one means ‘abominable.’  _Luckily_ the mages weren’t the ones who created the potions in the Tower, that was the solemn duty of the Tranquil, so all Bethany could do was offer her expertise in planting, gathering, and harvesting ingredients – basically advanced gardening – within the Tower’s arboretum on the fifth floor.  Which, _luckily enough_ , she happened to be pretty darned good at, and even _luckier_ , got paid a few silver to do it by the arboretum’s keeper, since it was extracurricular, and she _was_ really good at it after all.

           What could she say?  Hawke mages had a way with green things.  Though she _did_ wish she wasn’t quite so rubbish at herbalism.  The Tranquil were the ones who stocked the Tower’s supply of potions and healing salves, but the apprentice mages were instructed in the basics of herbalism.  The only persona around who was reputedly worse than her at it was Jordan, whom she knew for a fact deliberately made his potions blow up for the fun of it. 

           This all was, however, not even half as important as being able to finally contact her family.  She debated internally for hours what to write and how, if she should send a letter to everyone separately or not, but decided to include everything she could as succinctly as possible in one big letter, for the sake of cost:

_Dear Malcolm, Leandra, Sean, Carver, & Chomper Hawke  
_

_This letter isn’t going to reach you for a few weeks, or even a month they say.  So, to your perspective, you’re all going to be a month behind me – hello, people from the past!  I’m Bethany from the future, and things are far more advanced here now._

_I apologize for that last sentence.  Jordan insisted that I include it because he thinks he’s some kind of genius.  Jordan Surana is one of my fellow apprentices here at the Tower, and I like to count him amongst my new friends.  He reminds me of you, Sean.  You both think you’re terribly clever when you’re not.  There are several mages here who have befriended me, and I’m grateful.  I shudder to think what it would have been like, being completely on my own._

_But, I’m actually doing very well.  I’ve excelled at my studies and my mentors are very impressed with my progress, but not_ too _impressed.  Don’t worry, father.  I can sense the wrinkle in your brow that you’re developing right now.  The Knight-Commander interrogated me when I first arrived here about where I’d learned my skills, and I dutifully told him the truth – that I was an avid reader, and everything I knew I’d studied for myself, from books I’d collected over the years._

 _Of course, now I don’t have to hide my skills anymore.  In some ways, It’s amazing, being amongst other mages.  No one here has to be afraid of their abilities.  Ironically, everyone else is.  Even some mages.  I’d never even met another mage, so imagine my shock at discover that there are actually mages here who really_ believe _that they are cursed!  I can understand wanting to view magic as a curse, of course, but there’s apparently an entire_ Fraternity _of mages out of some place called Cumberland who believe that the Maker has cursed them with magic, and they should all bound to the Chantry forever and all be Tranquil or something.  It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.  Sadly, it’s no more silly than the ideas of the other Fraternities.  Though I don’t mind the Isolationists – those are a group of mages who think we should all just leave and go and live on an island away from everyone else for a while, and just be mages by ourselves without the Chantry interfering with us or with us interfering with the Chantry._

_I think living on an island would be quite nice, don’t you, Father?_

_It’s quite gloomy here in the Tower.  I was going to say that it wasn’t and that everything was fine, but Mum, you wouldn’t appreciate that.  You would’ve seen right through my words.  It’s not all bad here, of course – there are the few advantages.  Sadly, when it comes down to it, I’m one mage in a group of mages all living together until the watchful eyes of another group of people who fear and sometimes hate us.  For the most part, though, the templars are polite – they’re not nice, well except for one of them – but they’re not bad people.  I think most of the templars here don’t really know what else to do about us mages, and they don’t like it any more than we do.  Especially when mages like Anders go running about and rile them all up._

_Oh, Father.  I think you’d like Anders.  He’s escaped from the Circle five times so far, and now he’s on his sixth attempt.  It happened just a few minutes ago, actually.  Sadly, the templars keep catching him, since he seems to have a little bit of difficulty with the “staying escaped” part of “escape,” as Jordan blithely put it.  Maybe this time, the templars won’t catch him.  He’s a very determined man._

_I’ve kept the locket safe for you, Mum.  They didn’t take it away from me.  Ser Bryant assured me when he turned me over to Knight-Commander Greagoir that no harm would befall any of you for harboring me.  Is that true?  Are you safe?  How is Lothering?  Describe the weather for me, would you?  I hope I don’t forget what the sky looks like, cooped up in here with all these musty old templars.  Oh, Dad, did you know that Circles had arboretums?  The closest thing I get to being outside is exploring the Tower’s arboretum.  It’s quite lovely.  First Enchanter Irving saw I was rubbish at herbalism but had a knack for plants besides, and let me help with the upkeep of our arboretum.  As soon as I can, I’m going to find jasmine seeds and plant some for you here, mother.  This Tower could use a little bit of sunshine._

_With all my love,_

_Bethany Amell_

_P.S.  Sean, make sure you fill Chomper full of fatty treats and extra goodies while I’m gone.  I miss him terribly._

_P.P.S. Carver – stoppit.  I feel your scowling from miles away.  Quit it, you goober.  Smile for me once and a while, please?_

* * *

 

           Three weeks and four days later, Bethany Amell received a reply.  Several replies, actually.  All at once. 

           She couldn’t tell who was more excited, Jordan, or herself.  Of course he insisted on reading over her shoulder, nosy as he was, but she couldn’t find it in her to say no to him when he wielded the big green puppy-eyes.  Jowan just laughed at her, having grown immune to the puppy-eyes over the years.  She sent him a Carver-worthy scowl. 

           The letters from Carver and Sean were much the same in content, though Sean chose to berate her by asking ‘what the hell kind of letter is this’ and so on.  Bethany knew better than to take it personally, however; when Sean teased you, it only meant he cared.

           Mother, she could imagine bending over the parchment in tears – it was enough to get the young Hawke choked up as she read her mother’s heartfelt words.  She did tear a little when reading her father’s words of wisdom.  When she was done, Bethany very carefully locked away the letters at the bottom of her assigned compartment at the foot of her bed, surrounded on all sides by the other apprentices.

           The following months went by much the same, and for the first time since entering the Tower, Bethany Amell began to feel contentment.  She had settled into the routines of study, and excelled at her spellwork – elemental magic and spirit magic were her two favorites, though she had a particular aptness for the former.  Every night, she went to the arboretum on the fifth floor of the Tower, to care for the plants there.  It was her favorite place in the gloomy Circle; she enjoyed being around the other apprentices in the dormitories, and in the library continuing her studies on history and magic theory, but there in the arboretum amongst all the green things that grew there, she could pretend that she was outside again, and free.

           And every two weeks, she sent a letter to her family.  Occasionally she would have to skip a week because there would be no one at the Tower to carry the letter to Lothering, but usually there was always someone looking to trade for enchantments, poultices, or other relics.  And without fail, two weeks on the nose after each letter, she would receive a reply.  After the first letter, Bethany and her family settled into a familiar correspondence, or as familiar as correspondence can be between an estranged mage locked up in the Tower and her family still outside.  Her brothers and her parents would rotate who got to write the letter, and speak for everyone, giving updates and answering or asking questions.  It, along with the time she spent in the arboretum, were Bethany’s sole respite.

* * *

 

 

           Almost three years later, Malcolm Hawke took ill and died.  Bethany didn’t hear about his death until a month and a half later, the news having arrived on the day of her Harrowing, as the grief was too near for her mother to speak of it.

           The day she read those words and received news of her father’s will; on the day of her Harrowing, when her phylactery was taken from the Tower to Denerim, was the very unfortunate day that Bethany Hawke vowed at all costs to be free of the Circle, or die in the attempt.


	3. Liminal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some naughty language at the end, courtesy of Jordan Surana.

_My dearest daughter,_

_If you are reading this, then I am gone from this world. I fly to the arms of the Maker and his Bride; however my passing came to be, I would ask that you do not allow yourself the unnecessary weight of its guilt. Raising my three children has been my greatest joy in this life, and I am glad that I have left this world before I lived to see my children pass before their times._

_I am preparing these letters for my will hopefully many, many years before they are read. I have given one to each of you, bequeathing what few earthly trappings I had and what responsibilities I have regrettably left behind._

_To my children, I leave my legacy, my hopes, my wishes, and my unfulfilled dreams – all that is best in me, and all that I treasure, is within you._

_Bethany. Would that you I had not passed the curse of my magic onto you, and I could have provided for you a better life – but this world is not a fair place, where the good are rewarded and the wicked are punished. The world is a dangerous, cruel, and unforgiving place, and I tried my best to shelter this from you so you could have the kind of life that I always wanted, the kind of life I was never given. I was taken to the Tower at such a young age that I cannot recall my birth mother’s face. I have only the faintest of memories that I desperately cling to; a certain flash of color that reminds me of her auburn tresses, a sudden haunting melody, or even the faintest smell will take me back to that simpler, more innocent time before I knew of templars or magic. I am not unique in the world – my story is one of a million mages from every Tower._

_You, however, are unique, my daughter. I wanted to give you the life I never had but always yearned for, free of the Tower and the corrupting, overbearing influence of the Chantry. The Divine will label you forever as an apostate, will demonize you, because living apart from the Chantry is unjustly deemed a crime. I tried to teach you better. I wanted you to live and breathe free and unfettered, and learn what I never learned – to love the magic that is innate in you, rather than resent and squander it. I have always held resentment in my heart towards my gifts, but I have tried not to pass this impression on to you. I have tried to raise you under the belief that although magic is a dangerous, finicky tool, capable of great damage and even abuse in the wrong hands, it is not something to be feared. Magic it is a part of you that should be embraced. It can be glorious, if you wish it to be._

_It is up to you, my dear, to decide if I have done a good job of this. All a good father can do is try the best he can. Part of being a parent, perhaps the biggest part, is accepting that sometimes trying is all you can do. Sometimes it is not enough, but we keep soldiering on. Maybe one day you will learn this for yourself. I hope I live to see that day._

_I leave you my books, and my staff, which has carried me as I have carried it through many lands and adventures. I’d caution you to use them wisely, but I know you will. Unlike your brothers, you were always the most cautious, the more even-tempered. That quality, I think you inherited from your mother. Yet, at times, there is a boundless enthusiasm and a kind of wide-eyed, wondrous curiosity to your nature that I find myself in awe of – there is a hopeful adventurousness in you, child, that I do not think you inherited from Leandra or myself, but is a quality that is wholly your own._

_I had many dreams for you, Bethany, but none of them compare to your own dreams. I am gone now, and there is nothing left for me to teach you. The rest you will learn as your journey on through your life, without me looking over your shoulder. I have said that the world is a dark and unforgiving place, and this is true . . . but the world is also a marvelous place, full of beauty and light in equal measure. I do not regret that you have been sheltered, though I know a large part of you wishes it were not so. If you have been sheltered, it was out of necessity – we could not, as a family, ever live out in the open due to ever-present threat of discovery by the templars. We lived on the road, never settling, always moving too quickly to call any place home, which is no life for a family. No life for a child. In this aspect, I fear that I have failed as a parent. Because of this, I know you have many fears – the same as I. The fears of discovery, of the templars, the fears of judgment, of prying eyes, of demons in the night, of blood magic . . . It was I that gave you these fears, in the hopes that your fear would temper you in the absence of the wisdom that comes with age. It breaks my heart to recall the night terrors you used to have, and I can remember when you were a child first beginning to study magic, and entering the Fade myself to ward off the demons that haunted your dreams._

_Fear is a powerful tool, and your fears are good fears to have, as they keep you out of sight and out of harm. Yet, never let your fears stop you; sometimes, the best qualities in us only shine when in the face of adversity, so I would urge you to use your fear to weigh your steps. The writing of this letter signifies that I will be, or am not with you any longer, and soon there will come times in your life when I am not there to carry you through or battle your demons for you. You will face things and see things you are not prepared to see, know things that you are not prepared to know. Life will soon become a never-ending test. Right and wrong will not be so clearly defined as they were in youth. You must use what tools you have to decide for yourself what manner of person you will be. I am so proud of you. Never doubt that._

_When I was still a young man, escaping from my imprisonment at the Tower, I met a very conflicted, but wise man. Without his aid, I would never have survived to meet your mother and escape to Ferelden. This man I counted amongst my dearest of friends, and frequently wrote to for the years while I was still on the run. I vowed, after my escape, that should the Maker bless me with a family, that I would name a son after him. He died many years ago; his legacy lives on in your twin. This man’s name was Ser Carver. He was a templar. One of the Tower’s very own, who believed that although magic was dangerous, the Circle was not the solution. Ser Carver remembered that templars were never meant to be our wardens, but our protectors. He was someone who, like myself, did only what he could with what he had, though rather acting as I did - rebelling in spite of my situation - he acted nobly despite his situation. The difference between the two is a subtle one._

_Not every story ends in tears, not every mage is a blood mage, and no man is inherently evil or good. Each of us, whether we be scholar, templar, mage, or farmer, decides for ourselves what to believe, and what we stand for. Even still, some of us are never given a choice in this matter and choose to blindly follow the path that has been set before them without question, simply because it is easier. It is the truth; an easy life can be had by simply following the common laws of society. I went against the grain, and because of that I have lived a full life – a glorious life, to be sure, but it has been full of hardship and heartache. I believe that it was worth it, a thousand times over._

_I ask, my love, that you keep an open mind and an open heart to all, but use your innate caution, and decide for yourself who and what is worthy of your trust and belief. Although I see myself in you at times, I know that you are your own mind and person, and I have come to love and trust in that person to do what she believes is right and just._

_Ah, Bethany. Maker willing, I will live to witness the magnificent woman you will one day become. The Maker commanded men to let their magic serve, not rule; I pray that your magic will only serve what is best in you, not that which is most base. Chances are you have heard me repeat this phrase many times over; in truth, I was not the one who first said this. This principle, upon which I have attempted to found my morals, was first presented to me by my old mentor, the First Enchanter of the Circle from my youth. I was impetuous in those days, and did not take the words he said to heart. He was a wiser man than I, by far. Maybe someday, I will tell you about him. Even as I write these words now, and you are but a bright-eyed, pig-tailed girl, I can already see a great wisdom in you – and a bright fire that lights the lives of those around you. Never let that light die, Bethany. Never let them take it from you._

 

_Malcolm Hawke_

 

* * *

 

 

The demon was a beast made of fire and rage, but that was all it was and nothing more. It craved life and breath, so it could be free of shackles of the Fade; Bethany knew that she was the key to its release. All it required was one, simple word of consent, and the tiring fight could be over:

“No, no, I don’t think so.”

It seethed. It raged. It burned. She laughed, unconsciously; it was a sad and pathetic thing, really. Here she was, a mage of no small ability – a complex creature of thought and dream and form, and here this small thing was. She told the demon her opinion of it and it raged at her some more – even threatening violence. It wasn’t the first demon she’d encountered in the dream-world and it wouldn’t be the last, she knew. She felt like should would have been more frightened had they been in the physical world, but knowing that it was only a dream significantly lowered its threat level.

“Leave me be,” she finally commanded. “Go on now. You have no sway over me and you’re not welcome here. I’ve no desire to become some big, ugly, gross abomination only to get cut down by the templars that are assuredly waiting over my comatose body in the real world, with a sword having over my neck.”

That seemed to quell the rage demon, who visibly cooled. After letting off one final, enraged roar, the beast of fire melted into the ground and disappeared for good. She let out a huge sigh of relief, slowly unwinding the tight, buzzing ball of mana that she’d instinctively stored in the event that the demon had chosen to attack, letting the energy flow into her feet and out of her, into the dream-ground. The Fade was a dangerous place. You had to prepare for anything and everything. She’d faced down a spirit of Valor and challenged him for his weapon, she’d traded riddles with a lazy demon of Sloth, and talked down a demon of Rage.

All that was left then was Bethany Amell, the ground she stood on, the staff in her hands, and Mouse. Mouse, the mage she first encountered. The helpful little Mouse. Eyeing him now, after her anticlimactic “battle” with the rage-demon, Bethany could sense her most insidious test yet – the enemy of misjudgment, and overconfidence. She’d yet to encounter anything in the Fade in all her life that was exactly what it seemed to be, and she saw no reason for the Fade to start being inconsistent now.

“Well now.” Mouse grinned. “You made short work of that one!”

“Oh . . . it was nothing,” Bethany commented idly.

Pride.

One of Enchanter Wynne’s lessons came to mind: Understanding is one thing, trusting is another. Never trust what you see in the Fade - it is a realm of illusion and dream. Nothing is ever as it seems. Not even yourself - in the Fade, what you perceive as your own body is nothing more than a projection, like a familiar coat that your mind will don, to make your passage through the realm of dreams easier. The Fade shapes itself around you whenever you enter it, just as much as you shape it. Remembering this is paramount.

“Not for a mage of your power.” The apprentice mage beamed at her, and his tone could not have been more complimentary. Bethany resisted the urge to shudder – honestly, couldn’t these demons do better? Given that it had taken her quite some time to figure it out – her first instinct upon encountering the unassuming Mouse wasn’t ‘oh look, there’s a demon trying to get me to trust it, quick, I’d better shoot lightning at it and ask questions later,’ but it hadn’t taken very long after the fact for her to figure out that he was not all he appeared to be. Really, after conversing with him for more than a few minutes she had the inkling, and after her encounter with Sloth, that had pretty much sealed the deal.

“Right,” Bethany pretended to agree. “So, now, my Harrowing is over . . . what then?”

Mouse glanced up at the green-and-black streaked sky, his roving eyes finding purchase on the distant floating black isles that perpetually dotted the horizon of the Fade. The Black City, supposedly. The place of Man’s ultimate transgression, where the Tevinter mages were cast down and the first darkspawn were made. The Seat of the Maker. Bethany had always wondered why the Maker would choose to live in such a place - it seemed gloomy, from a distance. Couldn’t he just build another Golden City? Why would a god claim responsibility for a place of such darkness?  Why not just tear it down?  She certainly couldn’t imagine his Bride being comfortable with the supposedly cursed place . . . But this was far from the point, wasn’t it? “Well, now, you return back and become a newly Harrowed mage. You defeated the demon, you won the prize, and maybe . . . you’ll remember me when you get back?”

Bethany tilted her head ever so slightly, feigning her best innocent expression. “Remember you?”

“Unlike you, I’m stuck here in this forsaken realm,” Mouse went on bitterly. “The templars offed my body and I’ve been here ever since, wandering aimlessly through the Fade . . . I long to return back, but I can’t – not without a little help. All I would need, to live again, is a small consideration . . .”

“A foot in the door,” Bethany murmured.

“Exactly! Just a foothold in your realm. That’s all I ask.”

She couldn’t let this go on any further. “The rage demon wasn’t my test, was it,” she said sadly, and it wasn’t a question. “You’re more than a Mouse, aren’t you?”

Mouse spluttered for a bit, throwing up a defense, but eventually gave up, settling for a devious smirk. The ‘mouse’ façade dropped immediately, and when his eyes met hers again, they were anything but mousy. Her ‘friend’ had been replaced with a sinister and clever thing. “You are a smart one, aren’t you.” It was not a question, just an honest observation.

“I don’t fancy myself a fool,” she replied, trying not to sound too blasé without also letting her nervousness into her voice, “and you weren’t exactly opaque. I’ve encountered a pride demon before, in a dream – my fa- I learned what to look for. You can’t trick me, and you have nothing that I want. I’m sorry.”

“Believe what you will,” the demon said smoothly, his form growing and stretching and stretching until Bethany’s wide eyes could follow it no longer, so high did he tower over her. Mouse had been replaced with something else altogether – Bethany’s senses went berserk and, for the first time since entering the Fade, she did feel fear, icy and cold, traveling up her spine. “The real dangers of the Fade are not what they appear, girl; any creature can wield a stick against another. True folly lies in careless trust . . . in pride. Take care, little mage . . . for true tests never end.”

Mouse disappeared in a flash of light, and Bethany’s world went black.

* * *

 

 

 

Bethany awoke to the sound of screaming.

‘Squealing’ perhaps would be a better word. Jordan Surana’s squealing.

After she got her bearings and realized that she was no longer in the Fade, nor in danger, and was in fact perfectly safe back in the apprentices’ dormitory surrounded by her sleeping friends, she calmly asked Jordan to stop his bloody squealing (it was giving her a headache) and tell her exactly what had happened.

“Well,” he began, “they dragged your carcass back in some time around midnight. I wasn’t really paying attention, I was kind of out of it, but you were tossing and turning a lot, and then you woke up. Jowan’s been on the edge of his seat, like literally, as you can see,” he pointed. There was Jowan, nearly falling off the edge of his bunk, snoring softly. “He fell asleep an hour ago. I stayed up to watch you so I could pester you with questions! So what happened? What was the Harrowing like?”

Her Harrowing . . . Bethany Amell was done with her Harrowing. She was finally a mage. A fully blooded Circle mage. The thought gave her some thrill - a feeling of victory, but also slightly bittersweet. Now her phylactery would be taken away from the Tower, to Denerim, with the other mages’ phylacteries. There was no escaping the Circle. Every mage ends up here, one way or another. She tried to find the right words to describe her experience for her friend. “It was . . . harrowing?”

He glared daggers at her. “And?”

“And what?”

“And what else? Details, woman! I demand details!”

“Alright, alright!” She laughed, assenting. “But you know that I’m not supposed to talk about the Harrowing with the apprentices. It’s a strictly kept mage secret.”

“And it will continue to be top secret,” Jordan said dryly, crossing his heart with his index finger, “now spill.”

She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a near-whisper. Of course she was breaking the strict rules, but since when had Bethany ever kept anything from Jordan? The elf read her family’s letters over her shoulder. He knew all about her, and all her little secrets by this point, just like he’d promised three years ago when she first came to the Tower when he gave her his ‘best friends’ speech. She would never keep anything from him. She had been uneasy about having such a close friend initially, but when she realized that despite Jordan’s careless and easygoing nature, he was actually a highly private person, and he had kept all of her secrets, and was there for her when it counted most. He was truly a good friend to have. “Well, the templars and Irving took me to the Harrowing Chamber. Greagoir gave me a speech much like the one he’d given when I first came to the Tower, the same old ‘magic exists to serve man’ thing he always gives. It reminded me of a sermon. In the middle of the room there was this little pedestal, and on top of it, a bowl of pure lyrium.”

“Why?” He pressed. “Wait, are you telling me they don’t force you to eat six pounds of cheese, strip naked, and do the Remigold while balancing a pole on your head?”

Bethany blinked, processing this. “W-what? No! Where on earth—”

The green-eyed elf glared at a spot on the floor, shaking his head in disappointment. “Niall, you lying bastard! So you’re telling me I practiced all that dancing and pole-balancing for nothing? And all that cheese I ate was worthless? I gained weight for no reason?  Niall is so getting a fireball in his breakfast.”

“You didn’t actually do any of those things, did you?”

“What do you think?” He offered enigmatically.

“I think you’re very full of yourself,” Bethany said with a smile.

“Your vicious words wound me!” He cried dramatically, throwing his arms in the air. His voice almost woke one of the nearby sleeping apprentices, and Bethany had to hush him so she could continue with her recount.

“The lyrium was to send me into the Fade. That’s what they do, Jordan. The templars send you into the Fade, so you can face a demon, and you have to fight it off. If you don’t, it takes over your body, turns you into an abomination, and then they kill you.”

Jordan was silent for a few moments after she finished, rubbing his chin in thought. “So . . .” He drawled. “That actually explains a lot, doesn’t it? Makes sense.”

Jordan’s nonchalant attitude to the reality of the Harrowing confused Bethany. “Makes sense? They force apprentices to fight off a demon, or die in the attempt. You don’t think that’s cruel? Extreme? Unusual?”

To Bethany’s frustration, Jordan just shrugged. “Not really. You grew up outside, so I can see why you might think something like this would be harsh. To me, it’s totally seems like something the templars would do. I thought the Harrowing would be a rite of passage, like they would force you to take a written exam, lecture you about Andraste, and then a group of templars would smite you into the ground and if you survived it, you’d be a mage. This makes a lot more sense. Like why Howard chose to become Tranquil instead? The idiot used to quiver at the mere mention of demons, and now he’s talking furniture . . . I wonder how that works . . . Well, anyway, thanks for telling me.”

“Jordan, you’re my friend,” she confessed. “I would have told you anyway, if only to prepare you for your own Harrowing.”

He shrugged his blue-robed shoulders, and she saw a flash of white from his eyes that glinted off the dim torch light as he rolled his eyes in the darkness of the dormitory. “It’ll be any day now. I’m not worried. Shit, we’re both Irving’s star pupils. You’re a prodigy and I’m a total badass - if yours was tonight, then mine can’t be far behind. It’s Jowan whom I’m more worried about.”

“His will come soon,” she assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He shrugged it off, scowling. “He’s been here longer than both of us, Beth. He’s older. And you’re an apostate. Well, former apostate. And yet you were Harrowed before him? Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t angry about that - you deserve it, you’re awesome - but why? And lately he’s been sneaking around - I think he’s trying to hide something from me, and it isn’t working. He’s so stupid!”

Bethany frowned at the suspicious portrait Jordan was painting of their friend. Sure, he was two years older than Jordan and Bethany, but they were part of the same group of friends, and were in the same classes. Jowan was not an incompetent mage; he was better by far than the majority of the other apprentices. Jowan would be the first to admit that he wasn’t on Jordan’s or Bethany’s levels, but surely he would be Harrowed soon… wouldn’t he? And Really? Jowan? Sneaking around? Being suspicious? Anyone else she would have believed it, but he was the most mild-mannered mage that Bethany had ever encountered. Jowan didn’t sneak around. That was more Jordan’s area of expertise. Jordan’s and Anders’. “If he was planning an escape attempt, he would tell us,” she told him flatly.

“I’m not worried about him escaping. I’m worried he’s going to get caught doing . . . Whatever or whomever it is that he’s doing, and someone will get the wrong idea and that’ll be the last we see of him. I know at least a dozen apprentices who would gladly turn over their own, even if the things they say aren’t remotely true, just to get in bed with Greagoir. It’s bullshit, but it’s true,” he snapped, seeing that Bethany was about to protest to that. “You don’t have to worry, Beth. You’re the token apostate, which Greagoir hates because you don’t fit into his perfect little mage mold, but you’ve at least got one templar who thinks the sun shines out of your ass.”

She scowled at the grinning elf. “Now don’t you start up with that again!” she hissed.

His eyes lit up in delight, and Bethany instantly resented whatever was coming next. “Oh, by the way, Cullen was the one who brought you back - imagine my surprise, waking up to the big armored goof, carrying you into the room, like a bride, and putting you gently back to sleep. You should’ve seen the look on his face - I don’t think that shade of red even has a name. Like, maybe carnelian? Is that the right word? A mix between amaranth and carnelian red. Ama-nelian. Point is, that was one red-in-the-face templar. That kind of blushing should be illegal, it’s so adorable. He tucked you in and everything! I nearly died! Died laughing.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Bethany planted her hands over her ears and hummed, trying to drown out Jordan’s story (and to control the heat in her own cheeks).

“Awww!” He cooed, shoving an accusing finger in her face, “lookit you! You’re blushing! That’s so adorable! It’s _twoo wuv_ , I know it. The forbidden love between a templar and a mage . . . This is classic. I’m going to write a book about this romance one day, and it’ll sell in Orlais, and then I’ll be rolling around in piles of gold.”

“La la la la, not listening—”

“You can’t deny it! You know it to be twoooo—”

“WILL you two SHUT UP?” A voice suddenly roared, startling the two mages into silence. An infuriated, scarred, messy red head suddenly swam into view, belonging to a young woman Bethany recognized as Suriah. “It’s the arse-crack of dawn! Some of us are trying to bloody SLEEP, damn you!”

“Aw, sorry Suriah,” Jordan sneered, “We didn’t mean to interrupt your beauty sleep. We’ll try to tone it down, yeah?”

“Shut up, Surana, just shut up and go to bloody sleep. And YOU, Amell - shouldn’t you be upstairs the Mages’ quarters?”

“I-I suppose so,” Bethany stuttered, surprised that the furious Suriah recognized her at all, “since I did just past my Harrowing—”

“Well, CONGRAT-u-fucking-LATIONS,” she growled, her left eye twitching. “We’ll all very bloody proud of you! Now for the love of Andraste, be QUIET and go to _BED!_ ”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jordan muttered, giving the crabby woman a mock-salute. Suriah growled something under her breath and slunk back to her bunk.

Jordan and Bethany looked at each other in silence, and both shrugged. “Well,” Bethany finally said, “good night, I suppose?”

“Oh no,” Jordan shook his head, “I am way too excited to sleep now. That woke me up.”

“Well, I’m actually kind of drained . . . The Harrowing took a lot out of me, despite the fact that it’s technically done while you’re asleep . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever.” The elf stood up and stretched, while Bethany yawned despite herself. I suppose I can always just move into the Mages’ quarters tomorrow . . . “Sweet dreams, Beth. I’mma go lurk around the corridors a bit and see if I can’t catch Anders doing the deed again . . . Or maybe I’ll prank Torren again . . . ”

“Good night, Jordan.” The last sight Bethany remembered seeing before succumbing to a, thankfully, dreamless sleep, was a madly grinning Jordan Surana waving over his shoulder as he stepped out of the dorm and closed the door silently behind him, the epitome of a sneaky mage.

 

* * *

 

 

_Sister,_

_It’s been a while. Looks like it’s my turn to write for the rest of us. Good thing too, since I think I’m the only sane one in this house these days._

_A lot has happened. I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first: we buried Father on a knoll outside Lothering. Sean has been slowly taking over his responsibilities, managing the house and what all. It’s made him even more insufferable than usual, and he’s been driving me up the bloody wall with his puffed up attitude. He hasn’t cracked a joke in weeks. It’s just, “do this, do that, you have a responsibility Carver, bah bah bah” day in and day out, never ending. Mother hasn’t spoke much since the funeral, but I know she’s noticing the change in Sean. I don’t know really what to do about it. Sometimes I hate the git, and his jokes drive me crazy, but he’s not himself when he’s not being an arse. I’d rather him be an arse all the time than be bossy and annoying. I really hate him like this._

_I don’t really hate him, I don’t. He just drives me nuts. I can’t tell him I’m concerned, because he’ll either ignore me or make fun of me; either one’ll piss me off, and then it’ll start an argument. Can’t explain to Sean that the last thing Dad would want is for him to be a grump for eternity. And since Sean is depressed, that means that Chomper is depressed too - and have you ever seen a depressed mabari? It’s the saddest looking thing. The phrase “puppy eyes” doesn’t even begin to cover it. I hate seeing Chomper depressed more than I hate seeing you cry. I know how to handle upset people - growing up surrounded by girls (you, Mum, and Sean) taught me that when someone’s crying, the most they really want is a shoulder to cry on and a good hug. Grief is different, though. It’s not just tears and crying. We’re all grieving in our own ways. What Sean’s going through, what I’m going through, it’s more deep than anything I’ve ever felt. I haven’t cried yet and neither has he, and I don’t know if that’s normal. I just feel bad for Chomper. And for you. And Mum. I don’t know. I feel like I’m getting pulled in every direction at once, and at the same time, I feel completely useless. I wish I was there with you, or you were here with me._

_I don’t mean to complain for the entire letter, though. It’s just that there isn’t much else to do but complain. Dad . . . it hit us all. Obviously. And the fact that you weren’t there, but in the Tower, that made it that much harder to cope. I don’t think that Mother went into a lot of detail about the events leading up to . . . Well, this. If you don’t want to know the details of what happened, you can skip this part of the letter. You deserve to know, though. Dad took ill and it progressed pretty quickly. He’s a skilled healer himself, but it was the wasting sickness, Beth. For a while he just brewed himself his own cures, but when he didn’t have the strength to do that, he had to write down the recipes for Mum to do it for him. I couldn’t do anything, and Sean stomped around, got drunk, and punched holes in walls. That’s how we found out that Sean is useless in a crisis, but you probably already know that. We took Father to a hospice in Denerim for the remaining weeks . . . He was too weak to feed himself, so I had to do it. I had to feed him stew and soup like he was a baby. I’ll never be able to get that image out of my head. I was glad that I could help in some way, because at that point, I was feeling really useless. By then, the Mother in charge told us he was beyond the help of magic, so all we could do for him was make him comfortable while he died. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You don’t know what it’s like, to watch someone you love pass before your eyes and be unable to do anything. We had to sit on hands and pray. Up until then, I had kept telling myself that he was going to live, that he was going to wake up soon and be stronger, that he’d hear Sean’s voice when he read to him each night, and he’d hear Mum whispering sentiments in his ear, and he’d hear me when I told him he was going to be okay . . . and then he just died. He just stopped living. I don’t know._

_It might sound strange, but I’m glad you weren’t there, Bethany. I’m glad that you didn’t have to see it and go through that. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, especially not my twin sister. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s how I feel. For the first time, I actually found myself happy that you weren’t here, because you didn’t have to suffer the agony of watching father die and being helplessly unable to do a goddamned thing about it._

_Maybe I just have a different grieving process than Mum and Sean, but I don’t think I’m as sad as they are still. It still hurts just as much, but it didn’t change me, you know? I’m actually thinking of joining the army. Not any time soon, but maybe next year or so, when I’m eighteen. Mum and Sean need me here, to pull things together. Sean’s got his head up his arse and he can’t do everything by himself. I don’t want to leave Mum with just him for company unless I know they’re going to be okay. But when Dad died . . . A lot of other things hit home too. I think I’ve been living in shadows - in Sean’s shadow, in Dad’s shadow, even your shadow sometimes. I know this hurts you more than it hurts us, because you were closer to Dad than we could ever be, because of your magic. I wish I was there to comfort you. Maybe it’s all that’s happened that’s making me want to say sentimental things, but I never resented you for it. You know me better than that, but it’s a fact, isn’t it? You were close to Dad in a way that even Mum wasn’t. You had your magic, so that left me and Sean to sit back and figure out how we could be useful to keep you and Dad away from the templars. Sean was always better at everything than me, though - fighting, talking, even writing . . . I’ve had to measure up to him and I always fell short. Both of you know that, it isn’t news. I never tried to hide that I resented Sean for that, even though as my brother I still care about him. Can’t help that. Family is family._

_When Dad died, and I felt so empty about it, about being unable to do anything while he died, it hit me. I have to do something with myself, Bethany. I have to find my purpose. I can’t stay with my family for my whole life. Maybe Sean’s comfortable with being tied down to that kind of life, but I’m not. I have to find what I’m meant to do, and I have to leave in order to do it._

_And don’t you try to talk me out of it. I know you. I’ve discussed joining the Kings’ Army with Sean and Mum to death and they didn’t dissuade me. You won’t either._

_I’m not leaving to enlist tomorrow or anything. A year or two down the road, and I can figure out when I should leave. For now, family comes first. Always. But soon, I’ve got to start figuring out myself._

_I said I wasn’t going to spend the whole letter bitching, and look what I did. Oh well._

_This letter might be a little late because we just had our first snow. It’s officially winter. I’m writing this on Father’s old desk - we didn’t get rid of any of his things. Mother wouldn’t have it. There's a few things he left you, including a letter he left for you in his will.  I'm sending it with this letter.  Yeah, I know, normally talking about this stuff in a letter is taboo because it might get screened by the templars, but I don't think there's any danger anymore.  Oh, and his books and his old staff are technically yours too, but since we can’t send them to you without the templars confiscating it (you know that’s just the sort of thing those bastards would do), we’ll keep them safe for you here. Unless you want us to do something specific with them? The staff’s propped up against the wall by the door now. I kind of like it there. Make me feel like Dad is watching over us. Maybe he is, if the Chantry is right._

_I had to take a break in writing this to help Mum break out the furs and start up the hearth. It’s not freezing yet, but it’s chilly. I hate cold weather. Someday, I’m going to break you out of the Tower and we’re all going to live in Antiva, where it never snows. How does that sound?_

_Carver_

_P.S. Picked these jasmine seeds for you before the snows fell. Should still be good._

_P.P.S. At least I think they are jasmine. Don’t give me that look, I can see it all the way from here. If you wanted to be sure, maybe you should’ve asked Sean to pick them instead! You know I’m rubbish with plants._

_P.P.P.S. Look, I’m ninety percent certain, all right?_

 

* * *

 

 

Life as a Harrowed mage wasn’t too different from life as an apprentice, for Bethany Amell. She had a few more privileges than she did before and had unrestricted access to the stockroom and the library at all hours, but that was about the only change.

Bethany changed a great deal after her Harrowing. The following evening was when she received a rather fateful letter from her family, with the news that her father had passed away, along with a copy of a letter he had left in his will for her.

She did not cry, then. She simply sat there, stunned, for a few hours. In silence.

Bethany passed from room to room, lesson to lesson, listlessly. If her mentors or friends noticed any change in her, they did not comment. Jordan Surana had caught himself several times attempting to cheer her or inquire as to her mood; he had been in the room when she received the letter, and knew better.

She had ceased attending the evening services in the Chantry. They could not force her to go, really, so she simply spent the time in the library, reading.

Bethany hadn’t been able to sleep for the past few days, her mind too active to let her rest. Going through the motions wasn’t easy, when you were trying to control your thoughts all the time. Any little thought about her father she abruptly squished. Every time she thought of him, she felt a stabbing sensation in her gut; thus, thoughts of family and friends were pushed out of her mind until she could think no more on them. She was not ready to feel.

One restless evening started much like the others before it, but Bethany found herself wandering aimlessly by the Chantry. ‘Why go in here?’ she thought. ‘There’s nothing for us there. No Maker or Andraste . . .’ Against her better judgment she found herself setting foot inside and heading towards one of the private nooks. Sometimes she would see Keili here; Keili was one of the Apologist apprentices, a fanatic girl that Bethany personally thought would be better of Tranquil. She loathed the idea of Tranquility and as a personal rule opposed its application within the Circles, tolerating it only a necessary evil (what else could anyone do?), but Keili was a miraculous exception to her personal rule. The girl was obsessed with the Chantry and the worship of Andraste, and at any hour could be found in or near the Chantry, murmuring prayers frantically under her breath for the Maker to take the curse of her magic away.

Bethany had never understood people like Keili, but there had a been a time, not so many years ago, that she had felt the peace of prayer. Maybe she’d find it again. It was better than spending yet another sleepless night staring at the ceiling or trying to focus her tired eyes enough to read.

The Chantry was empty, and silent. She sat down before the statue of the Maker’s Bride, and felt nothing. Of course she felt nothing. There was no Maker; what Maker of hers would allow a world to exist where her father could die? What meaning was there, in this life that had been chosen for her? Still, she forced her knees to bend and her eyes to close in prayer, if only for lack of anything else to do. She couldn’t force herself to pray to the Maker; it was just too much. So instead, she painfully forced herself to pray to her father, because she was lost without him.

“I’m lost without you, Papa. I don’t know what to do. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there, if I failed you, if I . . . I can’t be here any more. This place is cold and dead. Andraste is dead. The Maker, if He is even there, doesn’t care. I don’t know what to say. I’m so lost. Please . . . If you’re there . . . If there’s anything there at all . . . I need help. I need to be free. Help me find the strength to stay, because I cannot do it on my own. I’ve tried so hard follow your principles, father. I’ve tried so hard to live by what you taught me, but nothing makes sense anymore. You can’t just leave me - it can’t just end. You can’t just be gone! When I said goodbye, I didn’t mean goodbye forever! You can’t just, you can’t . . . Leave me! I wasn’t there, and I’m trapped here now because of my own stupidity. I’m so sorry, Daddy. This isn’t the way things are supposed to be. I should be with Sean and Carver and mother, and we should all be happy and alive. Some stupid sickness doesn’t just kill you. Not Malcolm Hawke. Maybe it sounds childish; I’m not a stranger to death. People die. But you just don’t die. Now you’re gone and we’re all lost. I can’t believe in a Maker that would let this be the end. Not like this. There has to be more . . . There has to be something after all of this suffering. At the very least, a place where we can meet again. I hope there is, even if it is only in my dreams. I hope with every part of me. But, I have so much doubt in me too.”

Bethany Hawke clutched frightfully at the worry-worn pendant at her neck like it was a lifeline. “Please, Father, I’m not ready to say goodbye,” she uttered in a choked whisper, finally feeling those cathartic tears begin to well up. “I’m s-so scared. Help me find the strength I cannot find on my own to carry on.”

And she knelt there, for several moments, quietly crying before Andraste in the silence of the Tower’s Chantry, for the first time in several years letting herself feel. She wouldn’t cry, not in front of them - she had promised her brother Carver that she wouldn’t let them see her tears. But here, she was alone. Very, horribly alone, with only the edifice of Andraste for company. She cried for her father, for her brothers and mother, and also for herself. She cried for the faith she had lost somewhere along the course of her life. She wept for the girl that had been slowly dying ever since the templars had brought her to the Tower. And the tears simply would not stop, so she gave in to them, allowing herself to finally feel bitter helplessness. It wasn’t pleasant, but it felt like it was necessary.

Unknown to Bethany, a templar lurked in the doorway, his eyes shadowed as he witnessed the nineteen year old girl in her singular moment of weakness. Though he knew in his heart he was wrongfully intruding on a very private moment, part of him could not bear to look away. The same part of him could not bear the thought of this fragile, confusing, beautiful girl being absent from his life. Consciously, he was aware that it was a sin to feel such a thing for a mage, and it was his duty as a templar to rid himself of such feelings. Yet, he did not feel in his heart that he was in the wrong, and as a result, he found himself lost in between the realms of doubt and faith. He eventually found the will to slip away unnoticed, figuring the Maker could do without his evening prayers for one night, for the sake of Bethany Amell.

 

* * *

 

Jordan found Bethany in the library, as usual. If she wasn’t attending a lesson, teaching a lesson, or eating, that was where she was sure to be found. His apostate friend never did much of anything fun these days, it was just eat, sleep, learn, rinse, and repeat. He’d resolved months ago to pull her out of this funk if it was the last thing he ever did, but that was months ago. Ever since she’d received news of her father’s death back home, she’d been both depressed and depressing. Even Jordan’s ordinarily high spirits were starting to dim around her, and that just wasn’t right. He’d talked about it with Jowan, but Jowan was a useless font of platitudes and diatribes. It was always, ‘Jordan, you shouldn’t do that,’ or, ‘Jordan, Bethany’s going through something, maybe it’d be best to leave her be,’ or, ‘Jordan, that’s not appropriate, you really shouldn’t say such things about the Queen’s posterior.’ Jowan used to be fun. Bethany used to be fun. Bethany was trapped in her grieving; Jowan had a stick up his arse for some unnamed reason. Now, Anders was the only one who was any fun anymore, and then Anders had to go and get himself locked in a dungeon cell in the Tower’s basement by the templars, after his last failed escape attempt. As amusing as it was to watch Anders constantly rile up the templars, even his antics got old after a while. Now Jordan Surana was was faced with a newfound, and unpleasant conundrum: he was bored with life.

His Harrowing could not come soon enough. Even getting trussed up by the templars and thrown into the Fade to face a demon, or die, would be a welcome reprieve from his profound boredom.

“Beth,” he greeted as he ran over to his human friend, perched as she was with her nose stuck in a book two times the size of her head. She looked up at him, smiled weakly, and said nothing.

He plopped down in front of her and gave her the best impression of puppy eyes he could. They were pretty good puppy eyes - Jordan had always prided himself on his good looks, and his large green eyes were perfect for mimicking puppy eyes. When he was younger, he used to be able to throw the puppy eyes at anyone and get whatever he wanted. Now that he was older, he discovered that some people were slightly creeped out by his puppy eyes. They usually worked on Bethany Amell, though, but not this time.

How boring. Ugh! “Beth, come ooooon, you don’t need to be studying! Entertain me! Please? Come ooooon, I never ask you for anything!”

“Hmm? I’m sorry, what was that, Jordan? I was reading.” She finally looked up at him from her book, and that was the first time that Jordan noticed the bags under her eyes. He could’ve hit himself for not noticing them sooner, but he knew he wasn’t always the most observant. If something didn’t keep him occupied, it very quickly lost his attention, and as much as Jordan had been attempting to devote his attention to cheering Bethany up these last few months, a man had his limits. The girl had been determined to close herself off from everyone and everything. Strangely, the only person who she seemed to keep any extended interaction with was Cullen . . . Not that anybody was supposed to know about that. Technically, it was forbidden for templars and mages to interact on a friendly business. Jordan had been spying on her for a while and knew for a fact that she talked to the blonde idiot on a pretty regular basis, though, even if it was only in the halls when no one else was around (no one else except for Jordan, anyway . . . Not that they knew that). What he wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall for those conversations. What could the two possibly be talking about? Their conversations were never very long, as far as the elf knew, and it wasn’t as if they had too much in common except for the fact that they were both clearly in _twoo wuv_. Well. One of them was, at any rate. The thickness of Bethany Amell’s head was the envy of Dwarven siege engineers.

“Finally, some attention! Maker’s balls. Let’s go do something fun for once, I’m sick of being bored! Let’s go and wreak some havoc - this stupid place needs some excitement, don’t you think? I’ve been itching to get into trouble.”

He wouldn’t dare talk about the bags under Bethany’s eyes. Jordan may be a lot of things, and he’d admit to most of them without compunction. Contrary to popular belief, he did have a sense of tact and common courtesy, though it was only geared towards those who were closest to him. He knew for a fact that Bethany had terrible nightmares most nights, and rarely if ever got any restful sleep, and walked around each day in such intense emotional pain that it now was physically affected her posture. She used to walk around with a careful, light step, and now her shoulders were slumped from exhaustion. She trudged through her day to day as if it were a trial even to amass enough effort to breathe. He knew all of this, because Jordan knew how to use his two Maker-given eyes, and because he’d been slipping her some sleeping draughts in her drinks whenever he got the opportunity to do so. She didn’t need to know that - Jordan kept all of his worries to himself. He knew from personal experience that talking about the dark things on one’s mind rarely wound up being a good thing, unless it was for cathartic purposes, and even then only in a journal. Some things should be buried and stay buried. Some pains couldn’t be shared. He cared about Bethany as a friend dearly, and he respected her need to keep her fears and concerns on the inside; she never once showed fear to any of the templars, nor to any of her fellow mages, not even him. He knew the front she put up, and how much she valued it, and would never dare become the one who shattered it.

He would wager money that Bethany was closer to shattering than she had ever been, these past few months.

What she needed was not a heart-to-heart talk, like Jowan suggested. She didn’t need a lovesick templar stumbling over his words and putting his foot in his mouth every time he spoke to the poor girl. She didn’t need a friend. What Bethany needed was a distraction, something to pull her away from her grief so she could think clearly, and Jordan specialized in distractions.  That was what best friends were for.

That was why Jordan wasn’t surprised when Bethany almost refused, stopped herself, changed her expression from resigned reluctance to careful consideration, and then spontaneously stood up and declared, “you’re absolutely right, Jordan. You always are. I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s go and have some . . . Fun.” She spoke the word ‘fun’ like she didn’t even know what it meant - like it was some new land that had yet to be explored. Her tone was uneasy, but in her eyes, Jordan saw an achingly familiar gleam. He’d missed his friend so much.

And so, grinning like a madman, Jordan leapt up, snatched Bethany’s arm in his own, and marched out of the dreary library towards a new adventure. “I knew you couldn’t resist,” he taunted, feeling victorious.

“Don’t know why I ever bother to try,” Bethany said back, and there was the smallest smile on her face that made Jordan Surana’s heart skip a beat. Maybe this would be the first step, to crack the icy shell that the mage had built around herself since her father’s death. Jordan could only hope.

And Jowan could kiss his arse. Who needed that buzzkill around, anyway?

 

* * *

 

Jordan Surana was going to kill Jowan. He’d had a bad feeling about his fellow mage all that morning, and had tried his hardest to put it out of his mind. Jowan’s sneakiness and general weirdness all day hadn’t helped Jordan’s paranoia that something was off about the mage. He’d just known all day, just known that the human bastard was going to do something that would piss him off. He just hadn’t known what, until now, and now that he knew, he was definitely going to kill Jowan.

“I’m going to kill you, Jowan,” Jordan insisted. “Kill you. For this. You idiot. You stupid, stupid, dumb, idiot shem.”

Jowan’s eyes widened in surprise at the seriousness of Jordan’s tone and the added epithet ‘shem,’ which he had never heard Jordan use before, and started to splutter. “I-I know that this is all so sudden, and seeing Lily must be a surprise, but—”

“You poor, stupid, dead idiot. I am so sorry, Lily. I’m so sorry you met him. He’s a bad, bad man.”

“W-what? I don’t—”

“Oh, no need for your apologies,” Lily chirped, hooking her arm through Jowan’s and patting it gently with a smile. “He may be an idiot, and a bad, bad man, but he’s mine now.” Jowan looked up at Lily with a big, stupid, dumb grin. Jordan was definitely going to murder him.

The elf pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the stress-induced headache he could feel coming on. “Of all the girls to hook up with . . . I mean, didn’t you have a thing for Beth for a while there? What happened to that?! You two would have had cute babies! Babies which would have been baby-napped by the Chantry, granted, but still!”

Jowan shifted uncomfortably at Bethany’s mention, and Lily looked over at him suspiciously. Jordan couldn’t suppress a grin - apparently, he’d found the sore spot between the couple. “You did?”

“Lily, it’s nothing - I had a crush on her when she first came to the tower, but it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t have a leather-bound cover. It was just a crush.”

“Like you would have even had a chance anyway,” Jordan dismissed, rolling eyes eyes, “she totally has it going on with Cullen, and he’s way cuter than you. Like, so cute I could die.”

The Chantry Sister’s nose scrunched up in confusion then. “Cullen, that templar? Wait, what?”

“Jordan, could you stop?” Jowan pleaded, exasperated. “For a second? Just stop? I have something important to ask—”

“Something important to ask? What about telling me you’re dating a Chantry Initiate? Was that important enough to tell me?”

“I’m telling you about it now, shouldn’t that account for something?”

“It accounts for nothing!” Jordan roared. Jowan had crossed the line. The final line. “I’ve been trying to figure out what you’ve been up to for months. I was hoping it was something innocent, like blood magic, or demonic summoning, but no. You’re sneaking off to have trysts with a Chantry girl. This is . . . Hilarious! The funniest, dumbest thing you’ve ever done. I don’t know whether to be laughing or cackling. Is there even a difference between the two? And what were you going to ask? You drop this on me, and then expect to ask something of me? Oh dear sweet elven gods of yore, you want me to be your best man!” Jordan’s expression changed rapidly from indignation to excitement. “That’s it, isn’t it! I knew it! You’re going to get secretly married and you want me to be your best man, because you don’t trust anybody else and I’m your bestest friend! I knew it!”

“Wait, Jor—”

“Yes, Jowan, a million times yes!” Jordan jumped and squealed for joy like a child.

“Is he always like this?” Lily wondered, looking bewildered by Jordan Surana’s one-eighty-shift personality shift.

“I hated you five minutes ago for being a sneaky shit and being stupid enough to date a Chantry initiate, but that’s okay because I forgive you now, because you want me to be your best man. I accept. I also demand to be the godfather of your firstborn. Gotta stake my claim early, you know? I’m okay with sharing god-parent-hood with Bethany, if you want her to be the god-mother, but—”

Jowan finally had enough and clamped his hand of Jordan’s runaway mouth. “Jordan,” he began slowly, like he was speaking to a small, hyperactive child. Which, was close to the truth.  “That’s not what I was going to ask, but when Lily and I do get married,” he added with a flush, and Lily stared at the back of Jowan’s head with shock, “you can definitely attend the wedding. And you can be the godfather of my first child, if you help me with what I’m going to ask. I’ll even name my firstborn after you if you want. But first, you need to stop talking and listen, because you’re going a mile a minute, and I have to ask you this without you causing a scene and bringing attention to it. This is important.”

Jordan nodded, and bit Jowan’s hand. Jowan winced, but accepted it with grace. “Yuck,” the elf spat, “Jowan-flesh . . . Okay, what is it, you love-lorn dolt?”

“I have no right to ask this, I know I don’t. I haven’t been a good friend lately.” Jowan sighed and looked back to Lily, who offered him a hand on his shoulder in support. “Lily saw, in the First Enchanter’s office, papers - already signed by Greagoir and Irving - that say I’m to become a Tranquil. I’m not going through the Harrowing.”

Jordan Surana’s blood ran cold, which was a stark contrast to how hot his blood had been running seconds earlier. He didn’t know what he was feeling in that moment - rage, at the templars, anger at the First Enchanter . . . Or was it directed at Jowan? “Tranquility,” Jordan stated, numb. “Why?”

Lily was the one who spoke up this time, worried and frightened, quiet and hushed. “We don’t know, but according to what I saw, they seem to think that Jowan is some kind of danger. He’s been sneaking around to be with me, and someone must have seen him and suspected him of doing something awful. Greagoir thinks he’s a blood mage and they want to make him Tranquil, to control it.”

Jordan breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He wasn’t an idiot, but Jowan was. He caught his best friend’s gaze and held it for some time.

“Lily,” he finally said, not bothering to look at the girl. “How long have you been dating Jowan?”

Jowan was the one who answered. “For the past three months.”

Which meant that was around the time he had been caught. Lily, the innocent girl, just a cover. Jowan stared at Jordan with pleading, wide brown eyes. Strangely, an image from his childhood in the alienage came to mind, of when he was turned into the templars by his aunt . . . She had been a witness to his first victim.  The victim of his first outburst of magic was a shemlen man who had tried to force himself on his older brother . . . Why that image? Maybe something about the color of Jowan’s eyes reminded him of his brother’s eyes, or the shade of Lily’s robe that reminded him of his aunt’s amber hair. It was a confusing thing to think about, especially since he hadn’t thought about it in over ten years.

Three months ago; Jowan had been sneaking around for a lot longer than that. Looking at the couple, Jordan could tell that they cared for one another. Truly, they did. Poor Lily didn’t know her intended very well, though. She didn’t know how much of a sneak and a liar Jowan could be. After all, he had been friends with Jordan since they were children. They knew each other better than anyone. Jowan as like a big, replacement shemlen brother to Jordan; brother or no, he knew the truth. After all, Uldred had once been his mentor too, before Irving had taken him under his wing upon noticing his gift for primal ice magic. He and Jowan had studied together, for a time, before Jordan had turned away from blood magic and into the more legitimate study of spirit magic. Jowan, with his aptitude for entropy magic, had been easily taken in by the forbidden, and now it was coming to bite him in the ass. He knew Jowan, and knew the mage would never do anything that would hurt anyone else, but blood magic by its nature was harmful and destructive. The stigma alone would warrant Jowan’s execution, if he were found out. The fact that they were willing to consent to Tranquilizing him meant that Greagoir didn’t really consider him a threat. If Jowan were a threat, he wouldn’t have a head. Tranquility was the templar’s sick idea of mercy. Lily, innocent Lily . . .  
Even Jordan was shocked when the words that came out of his mouth were, “I can’t help you.”

“W-what? You don’t even know what I’m going to ask! But you’re ready to abandon your best friend just like that? After everything you just said?”

“I can’t, Jowan. You know damn well why I can’t. You are my best friend. We grew up together. But, you’re also a fucking idiot. Best go to Irving and try to talk him out of it. I’m not helping you do whatever it is you want to do. Not while she’s a part of this,” he added, pointing at Lily.

And with that, Jordan Surana walked away, washing his hands clean of idiocy. So why did it feel to him like a dirty move? Why did he feel like he was the one betrayed? Why did it feel wrong? It was true, Jowan was his best friend, and always would be . . .

At least he still had Bethany. He comforted himself with that thought as he walked out of the Chantry, ignoring the sickening feeling in his stomach. He was as much at fault for Jowan’s state as Jowan himself was, he knew that. He would _never_ let his friend become Tranquil - Jowan had to know that. Jordan would fight tooth and nail before he let that happen. Hell, he’d die for him if he had to. Jowan had been his only friend for years. But whatever it was that the shem had planned with Lily, Jordan wanted no part of. Lily was an innocent. Maybe if Jowan had come to him before . . . But that was wishful thinking.

Bah. Bethany. He focused on finding Bethany. His ex-apostate best friend was probably in the library. Even though they hadn’t grown up together, he still felt Bethany was as close a friend as he could have - and he definitely felt closer to her now than he did with Jowan. She had managed to pull herself out of her grief over the last year, and had acclimatized to Mage-hood with a grace that belied her deep-seated hatred of the Circle. Jordan was the only one she had talked to about it, the only one Bethany could trust with her true feelings. Her grief had turned to rage after a while, and had then simmered down into a slow-burning resentment over the Tower and her place in it. She had thought about escaping and even made plans, only for Jordan to talk her out of it. He’d never tell anyone why he had talked her out of it. Of course he hated the Tower just as much as anyone else. The reality was that Jordan was a selfish person, and didn’t want to be left alone. He would’ve escaped with Anders a while ago - the mage had finally managed to escape and stay gone - but the truth was . . . He was scared.

Yes, the great Jordan Surana was scared. Scared of templars, scared of blood magic. Scared of change. Scared of shemlen prejudice on the outside. Scared of himself. You’d never know it, though, and that’s the way he liked it.

“Bethany!” He was hushed by several studious mages when he called out for the girl in the library, but he paid them no mind. His eyes sought out the long dark hair and pale face of Bethany Amell, who poked her head out from behind a desk, where she was seated with an apprentice mage that she appeared to be tutoring. She smiled, wide and happy, and he smiled back. Yeah. Who needs Jowan?

* * *

 

 

It had been a year and two days. Bethany Amell hadn’t been able to stop herself from keeping a morbid track of all the time that had passed since her father had died. A year since she had become Harrowed. She had spent months stewing in a mix of self-loathing and self-pity. Now she only stewed in the regular sort of loathing, which she directed at templars like Greagoir who were responsible for her being separated from her family. The few thoughts that she did not dedicate towards her studies were dedicated towards calculating escape plans. She knew that she had to bide her time, if she wanted to be able to escape and stay free. Her phylactery was a problem, but Bethany knew that there had to be some way around that. There had to be. Her father had done it once when he was close to her age, which meant that she could do it too.

Life went on. Bethany Amell discovered this the hard way. Malcolm Hawke had died, and the world did not pause for him. While she had wallowed in grief, and the world marched on.

Then, the oddest thing happened. It was not the words of her mentors, nor the distractions of her friends, nor the support and connection to her family outside of the Tower that snapped her out of her grief-induced stupor. Instead it was a rather innocuous letter that she received from the only normal friend that she had ever made - someone she had completely forgotten about over the last three years. That girl with the golden hair and the dark, dark eyes from Lothering, Melissa Thatcher.

* * *

 

 

_Bethy_

_Never figured you for a sparkle-finger. Guess you never know, right? First thought when I heard was, ‘why didn’t she tell me?’ Then I thought, ‘silly git, you were a sparkle-finger in hiding, you wouldn’t tell no one neither,’ right? Then I got mad because you were gone and I didn’t have no one to talk to anymore. Right annoying that was. Didn’t care for your brothers back then, but yer mum was nice. So I’d drop by after you were gone, ask her how she was. She seemed lonely. Me mum didn’t like it none, but me mum’s a bitch. You know. She didn’t want no one talking to the mage girl’s family, right? Mum started talking to the neighbors and getting anyone she could in a tizzy bout it. So I went to the Dane to look for yer brother, told him what me mum was up to. He didn’t like it none neither, so we got all riled up, me and him, got pissed, couple of ales. Next day me mum went down to the Chantry and tried to yell at yer mum for something or other, don’t know what, but Sean got all mad and I got all mad. Then that lay sister Leli floated in, calmed everyone down quick with that pretty accent ‘o hers and smoothed it all over. Point is, I stuck up for you and yers. Meant what I said though. Just couldn’t stand the way me mum and those blighters she got all fussed up talking bout magic being evil. I thought ‘Bethy’s not evil and it’s not her fault she got locked up.’ Course, always hated the Chantry, never agreed with that shite in the first place, but whatever._

_Me mum’s a bitch, that’s not news. I know I get it from her, but least I’m not all narrow-headed like she is. None of that was news neither. That all happened month or two after you left with the templars. Yer mum’s good people. I go and help her out with her garden now that yer gone. She asked me if I wanted to write to you long time ago. Didn’t. Never did, til now. Don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I was scared. Maybe I was mad. You left me all alone down here ‘n this bloody village. Thought we were good friends. Then, after I didn’t write for a while, figured it’d be better if I never did. Figured you’d forgotten about me. Figured, right, she’s got magic and whatall to worry bout now. Don’t need me none._

_Then yer da got sick. Shite. That was awful. Sorry. You don’t need me reminding you. Everyone was sad bout it, even me. I liked yer da. He talked funny but he was alright for a Marcher. Been spending more time with yer mum since, I’m figuring she could use the company. She’s upstanding, yer mum, proper-like. Wished I had a mum like that. I still put up with me mum too, but since I realized I was sweet on yer brother, had more cause to stick around the Hawkes._

_Kinda just threw that in there, I guess. Sean, I mean, he’s the one I like. Surprise, eh? Well there’s not too many good-lookin lads here, most folks look like the sod they dig in. Can’t be picky in Lothering. Course, yer brothers were always turning heads. Those Hawke boys. I talk to Carver sometimes, he gets me, but it’s not like that. Don’t worry, Sean doesn’t know he’s sweet on me too, but I know. I know. He likes how I can out drink him sometimes. He makes me laugh._

_Yer family tells me a little bout what it’s like in there. I like to picture it like a big, dark castle with all these spikes and nasty imps guarding the gates and like. Maybe a moat. There a lake where you are? Calenhad, right? You swim in it? Do templars let you swim innit? I love swimming. Hey, you sweet on anyone in there? What do they do in there all the time anyway, just study? You always had yer nose inna book. Nothing wrong with that. Wish I’d had more book learning. You think if maybe you write back to yer mum, ask her if I can read some of yer books? Yer da left a bunch, but I can’t read the titles. All written in funny talk. Boring._

_Lissy_

 

* * *

 

 

The letter had arrived in the monthly package of other letters that she received, completely innocent looking and totally unexpected in every way. In it, Melissa had written to Bethany from a perspective Bethany had never even considered. It was refreshing. After writing back, Bethany found her step a bit lighter than it had been in months, and the stabbing sensation that she felt whenever she thought of her father or her family was . . . Lessened. She couldn’t explain why, precisely, but it made her feel better.

Jordan Surana had passed his Harrowing in normal Surana fashion - with record-breaking time and in flying colors. He blew her performance right out of the water. She made sure that she saw him as soon as he had woken up from his Harrowing, feeling she owed him, as his friend, after he had waited on her for her own trial. He excitedly reported every last detail to her upon awakening, and she smiled and nodded. She helped him move his things out of the apprentice dormitories. She had looked around for Jowan, hoping to see him around, but no such luck. Jordan had complained to her a lot recently about Jowan’s strange behavior. Bethany felt like reaching out to Jowan more instead of dismissing him like Jordan did, hoping that Jowan would come around. She didn’t have the same worries that Jordan had over Jowan’s Harrowing, but his worries had affected her somewhat.

A few days after Jordan’s Harrowing had seen him get settled nicely into the new quarters. Jowan had still shown neither hide nor hair. Bethany was tutoring an apprentice in Arcanum in the library when Jordan, per his idiom, burst into the room yelling for her, slamming the doors open in a dramatic flourish. She rolled her eyes and smiled when he caught her eye and walked over to her, ignoring the glares from all of the other mages at his loud entrance.

“You never do anything halfway, do you?” She mused as the blonde elf perched himself across from her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jordan snapped. Bethany blinked, startled by his tone.

Eadric looked up between the two older students, confused.

“Miss Amell?” He inquired.

“I’m sorry, Eadric,” she said, giving the other, younger elf her full attention. “Would it be alright if I spoke with my friend Jordan for a while? We can always continue later.”

He smiled and nodded, drawing the large book in front of him closer to his person. Bethany smiled as she got up from her seat and made to leave the library, motioning for Jordan to follow her. “Come on, we can talk in the Quarters.”

As soon as Bethany shut the door to her portion of the Mage’s Quarters, Jowan started yelling. It took her a good while to calm him down enough for her to make sense of what he was saying. “What about Jowan, Jordan? Calm down and tell me.”

“He’s such a fucking, pig-headed idiot!” Jordan practically screamed, tearing at his hair. “Ugh! I didn’t realize how mad I was about him until now. I mean, I was mad as hell earlier when he talked to me, but UGH! Jowan! Stupid, idiot, dumb, idiot shem!”

Bethany Amell sat down on her bunk and stared at her elven friend in awe. She’d never seem him lose his temper, ever - even when he was being dramatic, it was all for fun. This time, he seemed genuinely upset. She’d never seen him any kind of upset, either. Nothing ever ruffled Jordan Surana’s feathers, not ever. “Jordan, are you alright? What is this about?”

The elf took a few deep breaths and started to pace in front of her bed. It took him a few seconds to compose himself enough so that he could talk at a normal volume. “Jowan is dating this Chantry initiate. He’s seeing her behind everyone’s back, and he’s doing it for the stupidest reason ever, and then he had the gall - the absolute gall - to ask me for help! I stormed out on him. I didn’t want to hear any of it.”

The dark-haired mage brought a hand up to her head to run it through her hair as she processed this information. “A Chantry initiate? One of the girls who does the prayer services? Is that . . . Bad?”

“Bad? BAD?! Oh,” and then he calmed down, “you genuinely have no idea. Right. Yes, it’s very bad. Sometimes I forget you don’t know about a lot of the rules here still. It’s totally forbidden. Just like templar-mage relationships.”

Bethany frowned. “I overhear rumors about those all the time, though.”

Jordan rolled his eyes and plopped down next to Bethany on her bed, and flopped back with his arms above his head. “Yes, but it’s still forbidden. The point isn’t that he’s dating some Chantry idiot. It’s that he’s doing it for the wrong reasons. This girl is totally in love with him, and I think he’s using her as an excuse so that she can spy on Greagoir for him.”

Bethany twisted in her spot to look Jordan in the eyes as he was sprawled out on her bed. “Why would he do that? And has it maybe occurred to you that perhaps he’s in love with her?”

The elf rolled his eyes and groaned. “Because he’s totally paranoid about his stupid Harrowing.” He paused, and then an odd expression came across his face. “I don’t hate Jowan. And I’ll acknowledge that he probably does have real feelings for Lily. I’m just mad at him because he’s being an idiot and I think he’s manipulating this girl, who is totally innocent. Even if his feelings are real, it doesn’t matter, because it paid off. He found out when his Harrowing is going to be.”

The ex-apostate smiled and patted Jordan on the leg. “But that’s wonderful news, isn’t it Jordan? We should be congratulating him!”

Jordan’s expression didn’t change as he sat up and looked at Bethany. He was more serious than she’d ever seen him before. “Yeah, except it’s never happening. According to a note Lily found on Greagoir’s desk, Jowan’s scheduled for a lobotomy. They’re going to try to make him Tranquil, Bethany.”

Bethany couldn’t tell if it was the world that was suddenly frozen, or just her. Everything seemed to stop for moment that was split apart from time, and Jordan’s words rang over and over in her ears like a bell toll while Bethany stared into the space in front of her, feeling numb. A sharp knife of dread stabbed its way into her heart, breaking her composure and shattering her frozen moment as she sat back, blinking away hot tears that had suddenly formed in her eyes. “Oh, Maker,” she murmured, a delicate hand moving up to cover her mouth as her mind raced.

It is said that there are fates out there that are worse than death. Bethany had never been confronted with any of them until now. Tranquility was one of those fates - it was the worst sort of hell for a mage, to be cut off from who and what they were, and becoming an unfeeling mockery of who you once were. Death would be preferable. Bethany didn’t want to see Jowan die, though. She wanted Jowan to be safe and happy and Harrowed, like she and Jordan were. How could things have gone so wrong? How could this have happened?

Jordan let his friend stew in silence for a while over the news. When she finally stopped panicking, she looked to him and simply asked, “why?”

The elven mage sighed, looking thoughtful. “Because Jowan’s a fucking idiot, that’s why. It doesn’t matter, in any case. I feel bad for saying what I said earlier, but my mind hasn’t changed. He’s planning something stupid, I’m sure, and he’s going to get that innocent girlfriend of his caught up in it. She doesn’t know him like I do. I know Jowan, he’s been my best friend for years. He should know that I wouldn’t let him be made Tranquil, if it came down to it. I’ll probably go talk to Irving once I’ve calmed down and pull a few strings, since if I can’t get him out of it.”

“Why, Jordan? Jowan, he’s…” Bethany trailed off, the tears once again forming in her eyes. She thought of all the smiles she had shared with her friend Jowan, of all the nice things he had done with her, of the times they’d practiced spells together. All the meals he brought her in the library when she skipped out on them, lost in her studies. “He’s the nicest person I know, Jowan would never hurt a fly - why would they want to make him Tranquil?”

Suddenly, Surana sat up on Bethany Amell’s bed, shuffling to the edge. He bowed his head, putting his elbows on his legs and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, which shielded his face from Bethany’s eyes. Still looking away, he said, in the same flippant tone, “I don’t know, they think he’s a blood mage or something stupid. I-I don’t know where they got the idea. Like I said, I’ll talk to Irving, he’ll set things straight.” Bethany put her hand on her friends back and rubbed small circles into it. She’d never seen him this distraught, and it wasn’t hard to guess why - Jowan and Jordan were her friends, sure, but they had been friends long before she’d come to the Tower. They had grown up together, practically like brothers. It had taken her a long time to adjust to the camaraderie between the two, and even longer to feel like she wasn’t intruding on their friendship anymore. She had different friendships with the two of them, but cherished them both equally. She didn’t want to know what her time in the Tower would have been like, without the two of them to keep her sane. She owed them so much . . . And now it looked like they were being torn apart.

She couldn’t let this happen. No, she wouldn’t let this happen. As she comforted a sniffling Jordan Surana, who kept making empty promises to ‘smooth things over with the First Enchanter’ between his hiccups, Bethany made a silent vow that she would save Jowan from this fate even if it was the last thing she ever did. No one deserved Tranquility, no matter what they had done.

“Bethany?”

“Yes, Jordan?”

“I-I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know either.”

“Jowan… Maker…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will introduce the beginning of DA: Origins. Also, yes, hi, I'm not dead, and it has been an... incredibly long time since I've updated. I realize that. I also apologize for the inconsistency in formatting. It's possible I'm the only one bothered by it. And yeah, the term 'lobotomy' probably doesn't belong in the DA universe... but I don't care, so... :/


	4. The Maleficar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the final chapter in the Circle. The next chapter will encompass all of Ostagar.

After Jordan managed to compose himself, he left to go to Irving's office. Bethany was left by herself, feeling confused and helpless after the news. Eventually she decided to get up and walk out of her quarters, and find _something_ to do. Perhaps she could go back to tutoring Eadric, if the young elven boy wasn't already busy with something else. Somehow, it felt selfish for her to go back to what she had been doing before, after hearing about Jowan's predicament. A part of her wanted to go and track Jowan down and talk to him, but she had no idea where he might have been.

She got lost in her thoughts as she ambled slowly through the corridors. She hadn't been paying attention to where she was going, choosing to drift naturally to wherever her feet brought her. That was the reason she bumped head-first into Cullen on the way down the staircase to the apprentice' dorms.

"Oh!" She cried out. She flailed back from the hard surface of Cullen's breastplate, but he caught her before she fell to the ground. When his hands grabbed onto her, she felt her chest constrict like a belt had been tightened around it. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there."

"No, it's alright, it's my fault," assured Cullen, keeping her steady with a gentle grip on her upper arms. They stared at each other for a few moments before he let go, and Bethany suddenly felt very awkward without rightly knowing why. She had steadfastly refused to believe any of Jordan's nonsense about Cullen and her - no, there was no relationship, no infatuation. Nothing. They couldn't be. It didn't help her denial that his hands were so warm on her arms that she felt their warmth even after he had let go - nor did it help her denial that he had nice hair, and a nice smile. It didn't help that he was nice to her all the time, and took the time to say hello when even the other mages (outside of Jordan and Jowan) didn't do such a thing. It didn't help that he was the only templar she bothered to know by name, aside from Greagoir (though she did remember Ser Bryant's name, but he was still stationed in Lothering, and thus didn't count). No. All of these things were very unhelpful when she was busily trying to deny being at all attracted to Cullen.

Mentally, she reprimanded herself when she caught herself staring at Cullen after he had let go of her. Why couldn't she have developed a crush on Niall? Or Anders? ( _Because Niall is boring and Anders is insane. Cullen is nice and forbidden and_ nice— _stop it, say something, self! You're being weird!_ ) "It's good to see you," she blurted, and focused steadfastly on her feet. She started picking at the hem of her sleeves to make it look like she was busy and distracted.

"Oh, uh, y-yes, it's, um, it's good to see you too," Cullen stammered out. She continued picking at her sleeves and refused to look up, because she knew exactly what she would see. Cullen's stammering didn't help her non-crush either. No, it didn't help at all. An inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Jordan Surana went off in her head, 'he only stammers when he looks at you! He only blushes when he's talking to you? You know what this means! Act on it, girl! Seize the moment!' _No,_ she told that voice. No, no, no. "S-so, uh, where are you headed? I-I could e-escort you, if you like," he offered. She imagined that if she looked up, she would see him rubbing the back of his neck, which would undoubtedly be red from embarrassment. She didn't look up - she couldn't - because she knew that she would think it was cute, and she didn't want to entertain these thoughts. _He's a TEMPLAR, Bethany. Don't let what Jordan said about him get to your head! You're better than that. '_ Ah,' said the voice that was like Jordan, 'but the forbidden fruit is the one we always want the most, isn't it?'

"Oh, no, I'm fine," she said lightly, forcing herself to look away from her feet and stop picking at her sleeves. She stared at Cullen's breastplate instead, focusing on the flaming sword. It was a good reminder of who she was talking to, and a good thing to focus on. Absently, her hands went up to her mother's pendant and began worrying it with her fingers. "I'm just out for a stroll after sitting in the library too long. I don't want to keep you from your duties. I'll, um, see you around?"

"Oh, alright," he said, somehow sounding both disappointed and relieved. "I'll, um, see you." And then they both shuffled awkwardly around each other and walked on in opposite directions. Bethany counted the steps Cullen took away in her head, finding an odd sort of comfort in cadence. A few seconds later and about six or seven steps in, he turned around and called out her name. "Bethany, wait, I, uh…"

Bethany turned around and made the mistake of looking up and making eye contact. His eyes had never looked so green - she wanted to look away, no, she wanted to _run_ away because it was suddenly too warm in the corridor for comfort. Her robes were almost suffocating her. How did that make sense? The Tower was always drafty. "Yes, Cullen?" She asked, trying to keep her voice even. Why wouldn't her voice be even? Even her voice was betraying her now! Traitorous thoughts, traitorous voice, traitorous body temperature. What was next? It was like her own body couldn't be trusted to hold itself together in Cullen's presence. Oh, Bethany Amell longed for a time when she didn't have to worry about this… a few years ago, her body didn't do any of these things around templars. Sure, when she first came to the Tower, Cullen had been nice to her… but it hadn't been like this before. No, come to think of it, it hadn't been like this at all until Jordan had started crowing on and on about forbidden love. Surely, he was just getting to her head. That was all. Bethany Amell wasn't ill or sick in the head. Jordan was. He was the one who had planted the idea in her head, and that was why she was feeling this way. The crush would pass, like all things did.

Bethany was suddenly aware that the two of them had been staring at each other from across the hall for a few uninterrupted seconds while she had been lost in thought. _Oh no. Say something!_ Luckily, Cullen saved Bethany the trouble of blurting out something socially awkward, and said, "you look, um, nice today. That's all." And then walked away, his face beet red.

Bethany Amell stared after Cullen for a while, just waiting for her body temperature to go down, and her good senses to return. 'Because that wasn't awkward at all,' Jordan's voice said. _Oh shut up, Jordan. You're only in my head. You're not even really here._ 'You know he liiiikes you!' _Shut up! It's just a crush, nothing can ever happen, that's all._ 'Yes, but it's your _first_ crush. And he likes you back!' _La-la-la-la not listening._

Annoyed with herself and with her mental-Jordan, Bethany ducked into the Chantry for some privacy with her thoughts. She glanced around for a bit to make sure no one like Keili was around, because she couldn't _stand_ that Loyalist, always prattling on about what a curse her magic was, and upon not finding any Keilis lurking, sat down in one of the pews to have a think.

In the pew furthest from the stone idol of Andraste, Bethany Amell bent her head down, closed her eyes, and pretended to pray. She never honestly prayed anymore. She could remember when she used to go to the Chantry with her mother and feel that sense of fulfillment as a child, before she was discovered to have a talent with magic. After then, she was always afraid in the Chantry. She remembered trying to pray, trying to achieve that same feeling, but it was never the same as it was. Still, she had prayed, because it was what people did. Since her father's death, Bethany had stopped praying altogether, failing to see the point when the Maker wasn't there. The child in her her wanted to believe that her father was at the Maker's side… but the adult had seen the Fade, gazed into the black Void, and known the darkness that awaited her. This life was the only certainty, and now that her father was gone, her life had lost a slice of its meaning. The grief wasn't as crippling as it used to be, granted. She didn't spend her days in solitary mourning. Everything tasted different, though. Things looked less lustrous, somehow, knowing Daddy was gone. The sun didn't shine like it used to. Colors were less bright. It was as if some of the light in the world had vanished when she heard the news, and that was just the way it had to be. Nothing would ever be the same. The Chantry that she had once enjoyed she'd grown to resent, just as the magic in her that she once suppressed had begun to flourish.

Bethany sighed, and wished to whatever god was listening that something would come along to quiet her thoughts. _Anything would be preferable to dwelling like this… I'll even take Cullen's awkward stuttered flirting over my own dark thoughts._

"Bethany!" A familiar voice hissed from across the Chantry. Bethany perked up, her hair swishing as she turned and faced a frantic-looking Jowan. Startled, her breath caught in her chest. Jowan's worried face broke into a tight smile as he slid into the pew next to her. "Andraste's knickers, am I glad to see you here. Listen, I need your help with something. I-I asked Jordan, but he refused, and… I don't know why. Will you?"

Bethany was having a difficult time breathing while looking at her doomed friend. "Jowan, I talked to Jordan earlier," she said quietly.

Jowan's face fell. "Oh."

"Is it true?" She whispered. "Are the papers signed?"

"I-I-I think so," he said glumly. Jowan faced forward and stared blankly at Andraste's feet. "Lily wouldn't lie. Did he tell you about Lily? Of course he did…"

"He didn't tell me her name," she explained, "but he mentioned a girl you've been seeing. I'd say that I was happy for you, but the circumstances…"

Jowan said nothing, only nodding.

She couldn't stand to see him like this. Jowan was one of her first friends at the Circle. He was part of the reason she was sane. Jowan's kindness and Jordan's humor had served to keep her grounded during her worst times at the Circle of Magi. The thought of him being made Tranquil made her literally nauseous. The logic in Bethany Amell told her that interfering in Jowan's fate would only make matters worse for her in the Tower… but the _Hawke_ in her yearned to stretch her wings. Too long had she languished in the Tower, caged with the rest of the mages like animals in a zoo. She'd made her peace with her fate at first… but everything had changed.

All of the things that mattered before paled before Jowan's plight. "I'll help you," she told him matter-of-factly. "Whatever it is, whatever you need. Just tell me."

He stared at her like she was something he'd never seen before. Then he engulfed her in a hug, which she happily returned. "I can't believe this… I can't ever repay you for this, Beth."

"You don't have to," she whispered back. "Just promise me one thing," she said as she pulled away. "Please, don't blame Jordan for what he said earlier. He's in denial. You know how much he cares for you."

"He's—" Jowan opened his mouth to shoot something back, but seemed to rethink his remark. "It doesn't matter," he decided. "We don't need him to pull this off. I have a plan."

The plan was simple, yet elegant. Lily, the initiate that Jowan was dating, had learned the password to the repository. In the repository was Jowan's phylactery. As an apprentice, his was still kept at the Tower. Bethany's phylactery had been transferred to Denerim the day she was Harrowed, which made escaping essentially useless - not that that stopped many mages. She'd heard of some that managed to track their own phylacteries and destroy them. Still, the repository door needed the magic of a Harrowed mage to open. After that, there was a second door with a much simpler locking mechanism that would be easy enough to melt with a rod of fire. The rod of fire was easy to obtain - Bethany had been teaching elemental magic to a few apprentices, so it wasn't unusual for her to file requests with Owain for a wand. Really the only difficult part was getting Torrin to shut up long enough to agree to sign her form for her. Normally she would have asked Irving, but she didn't want to draw any suspicion. Irving knew very well that she was good friends with Jowan, and the wise old man would know if she was lying - he had that preternatural ability that all elderly people seem to have, to stare into your soul and sense the bullshit. Torrin was too full of himself to look that deeply into others, so she felt safe asking the Nevarran Enchanter.

After acquiring a fire wand from the Tranquil in the stockroom, the only challenge would be dodging the templars. They had to sneak about separately, to avoid suspicion. Going into the basement itself wasn't exactly prohibited, but it looked highly suspicious if you were seen doing it. Especially with a wand of fire in your hand. People might start to talk.

The three were careful, though, and managed to pull off the first part of the plan without any hitches. The first door into the Tower's repository became primed by Lily's key words, and some lightning from Bethany's fingertips knocked the door inward on its own, lowering the enchantment. For a moment, Bethany wondered if a passive runic alarm had been set up, but she didn't spy any defensive or protective runes on the door beyond the ones pertaining to the locking mechanism. Still, she was no expert, and remained on her guard. The last thing Jowan and Lily needed was to be caught by the templars from carelessness.

The second part of the plan was the death of the plan, though. The main door into the phylactery storage chamber didn't respond to the wand of fire whatsoever, leaving the three confused and worried.

"What's happening?" Jowan was panicking. "Why isn't it working?"

"This is it," the auburn initiate bemoaned, "we're doomed. We'll never make it!"

Carver's voice snarked in Bethany's head about Jowan's taste in women. _Quitting at the first sign of danger - that's a winner, right there. Hawkes never quit._ With a careful eye, Bethany examined the door frame for rune-work. While Jowan and Lily worked each other into a panic, Bethany studiously ignored them and focused on the scratches and etchings on the door - old, but deliberate, and spotted a pattern. Jowan noticed her attention and shushed Lily. "Bethany? What are you thinking?"

"There's an anti-magic field around this door," she said, and pointed towards the old Tevinter etchings. "No magic is going to work on it."

"So the rod is useless," he spat bitterly. "Damn it, we were so close!"

"It would work on a normal lock on a normal door," Bethany said, "just… not this door. I don't suppose either of you have the key for this one?"

Lily and Jowan shook their heads. Lily sighed. "Greagoir is the one who has the key to this door. I couldn't very well pickpocket the Knight-Commander. What do we do now?"

"We can't just quit," Bethany insisted. "We've come too far for that. We'll have to head further into the repository and see if we can't find another way into the phylactery chamber."

Jowan's eyes lit up. "Of course. The rod should work on _that_ door! Let's go." And he marched off, leaving Bethany and Lily to trail after. Carver's voice went on in Bethany's mind: _he changed his tune pretty quickly. Some plan, couldn't even account for a damn locked door._ Bethany shushed her inner Carver and stepped up to melt the lock with the rod of fire on the repository's door, which was down a short hallway from the phylactery chamber.

When the lock was melted, Bethany used the rod to poke through the new hole she'd made and used it to leverage the door open to avoid touching the molten metal of the door. Just as it was pried open, a loud series of clanks sounded from the other side of the door. Terror momentarily paralyzed Bethany as she immediately identified the sound of armor clanking against itself - the sound she had come to permanently associate with templars. Yet there were no templars on the other side of the door - and the three of them watched, amazed, as three suits of armor ambulated from their stands and drew rusty swords to face the intruders.

Without thinking, she turned the rod of fire onto the suits of armor and channeled a portion of her power through it. Jowan, behind her, threw a ball of energy at one of them and sent it stumbling to the ground. When the three suits of armor were apparently downed, Lily ran forward and kicked off their helmets and movable parts, to ensure they wouldn't spontaneously reanimate. Bethany looked down at the rod in her hands and wondered if she oughtn't to get a few more later on down the road - apparently they were multipurpose. She hadn't considered they could even be used to open locks until Jowan suggested it. Why hadn't that occurred to her before? Or to use them as a weapon? The circle only ever used them for educational purposes, but they had very good defensive capabilities. They were probably useful while setting up camp on the road - she would probably have to insist that Jowan take it with him when he escaped from the Tower. They could probably cook meat in a pinch, and it would save her the drain of constantly throwing fireballs.

"Apparitions," Jowan needlessly confirmed, toeing the downed armor. "Why would they have these guarding this place?"

"Probably to stop us from doing exactly what we're doing," Bethany surmised. She pushed a lock of hair out of her face with her breath. "Have I mentioned how much I like this rod?"

"It's very useful," Lily agreed as she stooped to pick up the least rusty sword from the downed armor.

"We can probably expect there to be more of these further in," Jowan went on like they hadn't said anything. "We'll have to be on our guard."

_Because we weren't on guard before. We're only breaking into the Tower's bloody repository to steal a bloody phylactery. No cause for bloody alarm at all._ Bethany's inner Carver was very active today. Sighing, she pocketed the road in one of her in-sewn pockets in her robe. "Let's hurry and get this over with. Getting in was the easy part of this plan. We still have to get your phylactery and get out."

Bethany ended up taking lead, if only because she was the stronger mage of the two. That, and her elemental magic was specialized for destruction, and they encountered more than a few animated armors along the way.

Eventually, the three made their way through the repository's winding halls and storerooms to a separated, heavily locked storeroom that was just happened to be the one closest to the phylactery chamber. It was also the room that stored the most dangerous artifacts that the Tower had in its possession. Bethany saw what looked like a Chasind hedge-witch's staff mounted on the wall next to an ancient Tevinter statue that gave her the shivers whenever she looked at it.

There were more than a few Tevinter artifacts, but nothing immediately useful that would help them tear down the wall into the phylactery chamber. It was made of thick stone, and no amount of fire from the wand would be able to break it down. "We need a battering ram," Jowan insisted. "This wall isn't exactly stable."

"Oh, right, let me pull out my battering ram," Bethany joked, "I keep siege weapons in my pockets for situations just like these."

Jowan rolled his eyes and smiled while Lily criticized her for joking at such a serious time. Then it was Bethany's turn to roll her eyes and smile. _Lily, if you only knew the family I come from…_

After a few more minutes of searching, she and Jowan were able to identify an amplifier housed in a heavy Dalish statue - the runes were elvish, and unusual, but Bethany's studies helped them out once more out of the tricky situation. It took all three of them to move the statue in front of the weak wall that led to the phylactery chamber, and with some more use from the rod of fire, what originally was merely a small stream of flame came out the size of an oversized fireball, and blasted the wall apart. The three of them coughed in the dust left behind by the rubble and eyed each other with mixed feelings.

Bethany coughed. "That, uh, was loud."

"I-I didn't expect it to be that loud," Jowan said in-between coughs. "Or that big!"

"If they weren't aware of our break-in before, they're going to be now," Lily snapped. "We have to hurry!"

Bethany wasn't sure how Jowan knew which phylactery was his. Somehow, he knew. She didn't question him. She felt nothing looking at all the red glass phials, lining the walls and filling shelves. Every one of them was a collar. A part of her wanted to blow up the entire chamber with the wolf statue, just because it was disgusting to keep a mage tethered to the Circle with what was essentially a modified form of blood magic - and then tack on the hypocrisy surrounding the taboo of blood magic to that. Bethany never disagreed with the taboo on blood magic itself - it was harmful and dangerous, after all - but she'd always despised the hypocrisy ever since she learned about what a phylactery actually was. (It had only been after she was Harrowed that Irving had explained to her, in detail, what having a phylactery really meant. She'd been thoroughly disgusted, but had managed to conceal her feelings from her mentor.)

Jowan tossed his phylactery to the floor and stomped on the glass for good measure. After he was done, Bethany sent some fire from her wand to burn the blood, to ensure that not a single drop of it could be used. "We should go," she said immediately afterward and made for the exit. "Now."

Jowan grabbed Lily's arm to leave as the initiate was staring at the walls around them, lined with apprentice blood. "This whole room should be burnt to the ground," she whispered, horrified. "It's… it's wrong."

A part of Bethany felt like it was wrong to hear such sentiment from a chantry initiate. Yet, here was one, in love with Jowan, helping him escape the Tower so that the two of them could start lives of their own. She had to smile. It reminded her of her mother and her father, of hearing their story when she was just a girl. The thought of her family set a pang in her heart that caused her smile to drop. She was reminded of the cold reality surrounding them. The three of them had broken into the repository to destroy an apprentice's phylactery, and they'd caused quite a loud bang while doing so. She ran for the stairs, motioning the two of them to follow. Before they reached the top, Bethany held up a hand. "Run if they try and stop you," she whispered back to the eager young couple. "Run, and never stop running, because they'll never stop chasing you."

"Bethany," Jowan hissed back.

She shook her head. "Don't worry about me, Jowan. Just run."

Lily reached out and grabbed Bethany's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Bethany was sure she saw the woman's eyes glistening. No more words were exchanged. None were needed.

Bethany led the couple up the steps, eyes darting furtively back and forth. The corridor was empty. Was it possible no one had heard the loud bang? Surely they couldn't be that lucky. She hissed for the two of them to run to the exit as fast as possible, and threw the wand of fire into Jowan's hands. It only had a few charges left, but he'd find a better use for it on the outside world.

It wasn't until they reached the entry corridor of the Tower on the bottom floor did it occur to Bethany that the lack of guards was at all strange. If she'd been in less of a panic, she would've seen it as downright suspicious. It was too late by the time she noticed any thing at all, and the clanking, ominous footsteps told her all that her eyes had failed to see.

They'd been caught.

They were surrounded. The clanking of armored steps drowned out the sound of Bethany's own heart in her ears, pounding like a drum. All of them were helmeted, but for Greagoir, who stepped forward with the most profound combination of disappointment, and disgust that she'd ever seen on a human face. Suddenly, Bethany felt nauseous.

Lily began to cry.

"No," Bethany whispered to no one, a feeling somewhere between nausea and panic making her gorge rise. She stood in front of her friends, unable to think, unable to act. The templars. Always on the prowl. Always aware. Always watching. Never safe. Always running. Caught. _Caught_. _Caught. Again. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid girl! How could you be so stupid?!_ "No, no, no, no, no—"

* * *

A hand with skin that felt like paper grasped her own and held it firm, pulling her up back into the world of wakefulness. Bethany blinked, bleary-eyed, at the First Enchanter's wrinkled, stern, sad face looming over her own. "Are you alright?" her mentor asked.

Bethany blew a bit of wavy black hair out of her face that had fallen into her line of sight. She was careful not to put all of her weight on the old man as she steadied herself on her feet, trying to piece together what had just happened. Everything was a little fuzzy. She looked around and saw the girl, the Chantry initiate, weeping on the floor. Two templars were unconscious in heaps, being attended to by two other brothers. Greagoir was barking orders at three other templars, who stood at attention. It felt like she could halfway understand what the Knight-Commander was saying, but it still sounded garbled. Irving's voice, at least, was clear. "Where… Jowan?" she asked, trying to shake the dizziness away from her head.

Suddenly it hit her like a brick to the side of the skull. _Blood magic._ Oh no. _Jowan. How could you?_

"Jowan escaped," her mentor told her quietly. "He ran away during the confusion after his outburst."

"He… he really was a blood mage," she whispered. "I-I don't belie—I can't, he… He…"

Somewhere in her, Bethany pieced together the signs. She pieced together all the broken fragments of conversation into something that resembled the truth. Jowan hadn't outright lied to her, but he'd lied by omission and had avoided telling her the truth - Jordan as well. He must've known, that was why he'd refused to help. How long had Jordan been protecting his friend's habits? How long had this been going on under everyone's noses? "How long have you known?" She asked lowly. "How long have you known that he was a blood mage?"

"We had our suspicions, the Knight-Commander and I, for several months now," he answered candidly. "An initiate spotted him practicing just a week ago. The order was signed this morning. Young Lily must have seen it on my desk. She had no idea."

"She's not to blame," Bethany immediately insisted. There was a helpless part of Bethany that saw her own mother in Lily. The romantic notion of Lily and Jowan running away, living on a farm somewhere with goats and babies, had captured her. She couldn't help but defend Lily, even though she barely knew the girl. "I-It was my idea, helping them escape. She just… she just loved him, that's all — that's not something she should be punished for—"

"She aided an abetted maleficar in escaping the Circle of Magi," Greagoir boomed from behind them, causing Bethany to nearly jump out of her skin. She couldn't help but defensively cower before the imposing Knight-Commander. Knowing someone could smite you on the spot for defying them was rather intimidating. She'd seen them smite Anders once during an escape attempt… it was the ugliest thing she'd ever seen in her life. There had been an Anders-shaped puddle on the ground where the defiant mage had once stood. She'd felt the tremors of mana radiating outward the poor mage's prone form - chilling, stifling, _dominating_. She never wanted to feel anything like that up close and personal. Afterwards, they'd literally dragged him by the arms down to what she assumed was the same magic-proof observation chamber she'd once been kept in, when she'd first come to the Tower. He'd been kept there for weeks. Yet there was still a defiant, Carver-esque bone in Bethany's body that caused her back to straighten while she faced the Knight-Commander. _Stay strong, Bethany_. She imagined her father would have wanted her to stay strong.

Why was it always hardest to be strong in the face of nightmares? And, did it ever get any easier? If you survived facing those fears, would you just develop new, worse fears? Or would you one day become immune and fearless? She'd always pictured her older brother as strong and fearless. He was the brave one. Brave, clever Sean Hawke. How she wished he was standing beside her now. She'd give anything to be back with her brothers, to take back all the time wasted here at the Tower…

The initiate's sniffle brought Bethany out of her morose thoughts. Lily, poor, poor Lily. Lily stood, and wiped away at her eyes. She looked so tired, so different than she did when Bethany last saw her. Consciously, she knew that only moments had passed, but Lily somehow looked older than she did moments before. She was a beautiful girl, even when she was sad. _Perhaps Jowan really did love her… but why did he leave her behind?_ "Ser, I admit to aiding in the escape of a mage, but I did not know he was a maleficar. I had no way of knowing—"

"You knew enough," Greagoir snapped. "You made your choice. Take her away to Aeonar."

_Aeonar?_ Bethany's eyes widened.

"NO, please!" Lily cried as armored hands clasped her arms and two white and red robed templars dragged her away. She did not kick or scream, though she did momentarily struggle. "Not there!" She cried. "Please! I'm begging you, no!"

"No, stop!" Bethany cried. She reached out a hand to object, but withdrew when she saw Greagoir's hand reach to his sword in defense. "She didn't do anything wrong—it's not fair! It's too much!"

"It is justice," Greagoir insisted. Bethany looked to Irving, who seemed too tired to object. He shook his head sadly.

How was it only moments ago, Bethany Amell had been filled with such hope for her two friends? How was it that mere moments ago, they had been inches away from starting a new life outside the Tower? How had Lily's life come to this? Was it just? As far as she knew, Jowan had never hurt anyone, despite apparently being a blood mage. Then again, he was a maleficar. She just discovered that she barely knew her good friend at all. How is it that she could still justify his actions in her mind? How could she not see the fault in her own actions - in Lily's actions? Was she wrong? Or were they wrong? How had the lines become so ill-defined?

Greagoir's booming, commanding voice brought Bethany out of her reverie. "As for you," he went on, and Bethany realized with a start that he was now addressing her directly, " _you,_ a recently Harrowed mage, barely a few years out of observation, have been caught in the act of aiding a maleficar escape from the Circle. Do you know what the punishment for this is?"

Suddenly, she was no longer sure of anything. What _was_ the punishment for aiding an abetted maleficar? Especially since she _was_ a mage, after all. A cold, logical part of her addressed the possibility of death or Tranquility, as her punishments. She wasn't sure which she'd prefer. Death, probably. (When did things suddenly become so cold? So bleak?)

"I'm going to die, aren't I," she blurted. She stared at the wall behind Greagoir and a small, sardonic smile came across her face. "I see. I think I'd prefer death over being made Tranquil, if that's well with you, Ser." Suddenly, she couldn't see clearly. Everything became blurry again. Why was her face so warm? Her cheeks felt… she brushed her cheek and saw her sleeve come back wet. Oh. She was crying. _When did that happen? Have I been crying all this time? Crying in front of the templars? Carver would be ashamed of me… Then again, if I'm about to die…_ a keening sob tore out of her throat against her will, and Bethany found herself falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands to avoid her elders seeing her in such a state. She keep telling herself to stop, but nothing seemed to work. Against her will, tears poured out in a torrent she didn't know she possessed. After her father, she'd thought she was all done with tears.

_Jowan, Jowan… why did you have to lie to me?_ (Would you have helped him if you'd known?) _You didn't have to lie… Oh, poor Lily! Why did this have to happen? Maker…_ (Does it matter now? He's gone and never coming back. He's free and you're not. You'll never see them again.) _At least he's free._ (You set a blood mage free into the world.) _He would never hurt anyone. Would he?_ (Look at what he did. At what you did.) _I'm pathetic._ (Trapped, like an animal.)

Kneeling there, helplessly crying against her own will, Bethany was not aware of much that transpired in the next few moments. The only thing she was certain of was that she was doomed to die for helping her friend, and that the stone floor of Kinloch Hold felt bitingly cold against her knees even through the thick padding of her robe. It reminded her strangely of the first time she'd come to the Tower, when they'd taken the sample from her, and Greagoir had introduced her to her new 'home.' She wasn't aware of the third individual who joined the scene from the stairwell until Greagoir shouted a loud objection that forced her to look up to see what it was about.

With red, swollen eyes, Bethany Amell gazed up from her prone position and saw a strange bearded man dressed in strange armor and clothes. He was clearly no templar, judging from the lack of Suns on his armor, in addition to the two non-standard weapons he had strapped to his shoulders. She spied a few more of what looked like daggers strapped to various portions of his body. Why was he so well-armed, running through the relatively safe Tower? Even most templars avoided carrying their swords on duty, unless they were overseeing a Harrowing or were guarding the main entrance. Or they were in command. Who was this man? Strangers didn't ever enter the Tower and mingle with the mages, yet this one wandered freely…

"You cannot! This _girl_ has been exposed to blood magic! Bad enough she came to us an apostate at such an age, and now this? Irving, I must draw the line!" Greagoir was shouting. It felt like, for a moment, that he was talking about some other girl. Bethany Hawke would never do bad things or be exposed to blood magic. Nor had she ever been called in apostate in such a derogatory manner. It suddenly occurred to the girl that Greagoir was indeed referring to some _other_ girl. After all, Bethany Amell was just as mask that Bethany Hawke had worn to fit in. She wasn't real. None of it felt real. It felt like it was all a bad dream, from the moment she'd saved that little boy, to her father's…

_Oh, Daddy._

"Then I'll invoke the Right of Conscription," the man replied in a calm, even voice that was at odds with Greagoir's angry tone. His voice was deep and accented, not Fereldan, but something else. Bethany couldn't quite deduce what it was, but it was just slightly off. Who was he? Who was this man? What was he speaking about? Curiosity overcame her panic. She wiped away at her cheeks with her sleeve, and gazed up at the spectacle of one armed human man staring down the First Enchanter _and_ the Knight-Commander - two of the most powerful people in all of Ferelden.

Irving sighed and stepped between the two armed soldiers, a gesture that would look comical if one didn't realize that Irving was probably the most dangerous person in that room. He placed a gentle, wrinkled hand on Greagoir's armored pauldron in a calming gesture. It didn't seem to be effective and only earned him a glare from the belligerent Knight-Commander. "It is Duncan's right, as the Warden-Commander, to recruit whomsoever he pleases," Irving reasoned. "It isn't our place to object."

_Warden-Commander? Was this the Warden Jordan spoke of?_ Bethany wiped some more at her eyes, which were now wide with wonder and confusion. Slowly she stood up on creaky, shaky knees. Hugging herself, she stared between Greagoir and the bearded Warden man. _A Grey Warden. Here! The legendary warriors!_ The two seemed to be engaged in a very intense staring contest, which the Warden apparently won as Greagoir turned away and practically spat in disgust. "I seem to not have a choice in the matter," Greagoir muttered. "My objections have been made known, I trust. You, apostate." He know looked Bethany Amell-Hawke straight in the eye, and suddenly it was like she had just come to the Tower all over again. Greagoir's stormy blue-grey eyes bore into Bethany's soft brown, but rather than quivering as she had years before, she found her back unable to bend, and met his gaze unflinchingly. She refused to look away from the hatred in Greagoir's eyes. "In any other world, you would have been locked away in Aeonar with your accomplice, or worse. As it stands, the Warden-Commander has decided you are worth recruitment. I disagree with this assessment vehemently."

Bethany blinked. And blinked again. "W-what?"

Irving kindly took her hand and patted it gently. "My dear, Duncan came to this Tower to look for mages to join his Order against the darkspawn in the south. He's chosen you."

_What?_ "Bu-but I th-thought Jordan…" Hadn't Jordan said there was a Warden around, recruiting? Why hadn't it occurred to her that he was recruiting _mages?_ In the back of her mind, Bethany had assumed that the Wardens didn't allow mages into their ranks. After all, there were no mages allowed outside of the Tower. They were all branded apostates. Weren't they? Clearly she had some reading to do about the Wardens.

Her eyes sought out the Warden-Commander's. They were a shade darker than her own and reminded her of her older brother's. Not because of the color, but of the kindness in them. At least, next to the Knight-Commander's hateful glares, they looked kind. She'd been around too many unfriendly faces for too long to trust anyone's eyes anymore, though. "You want… me?" She squeaked. "But I, I just helped Jowan escape… _me?_ Are you sure you don't you want J-J-Jordan Surana? He's much better worth words and spells and… I-I'm just m-me!"

What Duncan said to her in that moment resonated with her throughout the rest of Bethany Hawke's life. "It is not everyday that I find someone willing to risk everything for a friend in need. That you aided your friend in his escape, or that he performed blood magic, is inconsequential to me. The Grey Wardens are people of excellent skill and fearsome drive, and you have shown that you possess both of those qualities."


End file.
